


the body will remember

by margctbishop



Series: our world inverted [1]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, buckle up bitches, featuring slow dances and horrific nightmares, mary gardens and zelda is in Love, mostly because I wanted to further develop the bean that is Mary Wardwell, not Lilith x Zelds, ooo my dudes, this is spellwell!!!, this snowballed so fast, with a capital L
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-06 00:55:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20498216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/margctbishop/pseuds/margctbishop
Summary: Sabrina invites Mary Wardwell to Solstice dinner. The only problem is that she shows up a day early by mistake, and Sabrina isn't even home.But Zelda Spellman is.





	1. even if the brain has forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> “You never forget. It must be somewhere inside you. Even if the brain has forgotten, perhaps the teeth remember. Or the fingers.” - Neil Gaima

It’s cold out, even for December in Greendale. Zelda has half a mind to think that the snow will never stop falling, that it’ll build and build until it swallows up everything and she’ll wind up living out her days in a perpetual snow globe. She keeps the fire burning in the hearth and brews kettle after kettle of hot tea, but it’s not enough to drive out the ever-present chill that’s taken root in her gut. If Zelda were the sort for self-pity, she would say it feels remarkably like loneliness.

Ambrose is in Europe with Prudence, tracking Blackwood across mountain ranges and down into the villages. Sabrina stays at the academy most nights, and Hilda at Doctor Cee’s. That leaves Zelda alone in a house with entirely too many rooms and walls that can never manage to seal in the warmth. She stays busy easily enough during the day; being the first High Priestess to date of a coven still in the ground stages is, to put it bluntly, a lot of fucking work. There are class curriculums to be reworked and prospective students to be interviewed and deep-seated patriarchal traditions to be overturned. It’s exhausting, and some days she feels as though she’ll never be through playing catch up, but it’s nice to feel needed. And then she goes home to a tumbler of whiskey for dinner and pounds her way through cigarette after cigarette, chasing a heat that never comes.

December 25thsneaks up on her, with Sabrina not being around enough to insist on decking the halls and whatnot, and the kitchen counters are void of the typical onslaught from Hilda’s incessant baking, so it had been rather easy for the Solstice season to slip under her radar. Sabrina comes flying through in a tizzy of red the evening of the 23rd, throwing clothes haphazardly into a bag and babbling endlessly about things that Zelda only vaguely grasps, but she sits on the girl’s bed and drinks it in all the same. There had been a time, in the not-so-distant past, where Zelda would brace herself every time her niece opened her mouth, _sure _that whatever would spill from her lips would bring about unneeded drama. But that felt like eons ago, and the waters of today aren’t nearly so turbulent. She can’t pinpoint the exact moment that this change unearthed itself, but she finds herself missing those days. The ones with a household of people turning to her for guidance, for comfort. For warmth.

They decide on the 26thfor a family gathering, Sabrina and Hilda each having their respective engagements the day of the 25th, and Zelda musters up enough perspective to be grateful. They care for her, she knows it to be true. She can’t be angry with them for cultivating other relationships, for having others to whom they turn when once they turned to her. She isn’t angry. She’s just cold.

Solstice day passes unremarkably, and apart from phones call from Sabrina and Hilda, she speaks to no one for the duration of it. She gives up working on her manifesto at 4, trading in a pen for a glass of the oldest whiskey on the shelf. It is a holiday, after all. She’s comfortably buzzed within the hour, a record droning in the background if only to disrupt the suffocating silence. When the doorbell sounds, she almost thinks she imagines it.

She slips her heels on, downs the rest of the amber liquid in her glass, and makes her way to the front door. She steels herself before pulling it open.

“Ms. Wardwell?” The words sound raw leaving her lips, disappearing into the stiflingly cold evening with a puffy cloud. She watches as the woman’s eyes widen almost comically, an ungloved hand coming up to push a stray hair behind a pink tipped ear. She’s pulled the dark tresses into a low knot that sits just above her neck, but there are errant strands that must’ve been tugged out by the wind and are falling into her eyes. Her tongue darts out to wet a chapped, worry-worn lip, and as far as Zelda can tell, there isn’t a stitch of makeup on her face. So different, Zelda muses, from the wild-maned creature she had come to recognize as Lilith.

“Ms. Spellman! Hello,” she greets, a mess of fidgeting fingers and darting eyes. “Sabrina invited me round for Christmas dinner. I assumed she told you, but-”

“That’s tomorrow,” the witch interrupts, the familiar spark of annoyance rearing its faithful head in her temples. She folds her arms protectively over her middle, willing the woman to get back into her car and go back to wherever she came from. Although… “Did you _walk _here?”

“Oh, heavens no,” she says hurriedly, and Zelda forces a grimace from materializing on her face at the phrase. “I had a work colleague drop me at the top there. My car’s been giving me trouble.”

“I see,” Zelda says, watching the woman before her fold into herself, rubbing her arms against the chill. She allows her to struggle silently for a second more before sighing and stepping back into the home, a crook of a defined eyebrow the only invitation she’s willing to put forth.

“Oh, I couldn’t impose…”

“How exactly would you plan to get home, Ms. Wardwell?” At that, the woman’s hands still their incessant fumbling. “Get inside, before you catch your death.”

More whiskey is poured, a glass exchanges hands, and Zelda finds herself sat at the kitchen table while the brunette flitters through her kitchen, pulling out spices and cooking ware that Zelda didn’t know she owned. She had steeled herself for an evening of unpleasantries, but what followed was surprisingly less revolting than she’d originally imagined it would be. She talks, and she talks, but she doesn’t expect much from Zelda, for which she is immensely grateful. Sometimes, her eyes will glaze over, breathing out a frustrated sigh as though she were trying to conjure up something that’s on the tip of her brain but that she can never manage to grasp. She’ll shake herself soon enough, attempting an airy laugh that always falls short of being authentic. Zelda tries to not think too deeply about this.

They talk about Sabrina, mostly, about her transfer to a private school a town over. The Wardwell woman furrows her brows as she plates chicken and green beans, casts a sideways glance at Zelda that causes the little hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end, but if she doesn’t buy the story, she doesn’t say so.

She’s a good cook, doesn’t even dry out the chicken the way Zelda always manages to, and it strikes her that this is _nice_. She supposes it could be that she’s midway through her fourth glass of whiskey, or maybe she’s simply been deprived of human contact as of late, but she finds herself smiling at Ms. Wardwell’s attempts at humor, a throaty chuckle sounding as she listens to the other woman’s anecdotes concerning what teaching a throng of hormonal teenagers actually entails. The smile falls from her lips swiftly when her hand is being snatched up, fork falling to the ceramic with a loud _clank_. She attempts to extract it to no avail; the Wardwell woman has a vicelike grip on her wrist, one finger in particular drawing her focus.

“Are you married?” Blue eyes flash with surprise, and Zelda doesn’t know what she had been expecting, but that certainly wasn’t it. With a sharp tug, she wriggles out of the grip, covering the offending hand with her other.

“I beg your pardon?” she asks incredulously, placing a cigarette between her lips and lighting it up.

“I’m sorry, it’s just,” she laughs lightly, seemingly regaining her sense of propriety but pushing through anyhow. “It’s just you have a tan line, right where a wedding band would go.” This has Zelda knotting her brows together, drawing on her cigarette and eyeing the woman wearily.

“You’re very observant for a history teacher,” she says, not unkindly. She watches a blush rise to the apples of her cheeks, but she’s not given a response. “I was, yes.”

“When?” she asks, and seeing the expression on Zelda’s face, adds, “I’m sorry. I know it’s probably not my place.” A hum of agreeance from Zelda. “I just didn’t know. Where is he?”

Zelda considers lying. It would be rather fun to paint Faustus as the egotistical manwhore that he was, list off his more revolting tendencies and finish it off with her leaving him when she found him screwing a younger woman on his desk. She wouldn’t even have to embellish much. Instead, she finds herself saying,

“Dead.” She doesn’t add the _hopefully _that’s scratching against the roof of her mouth, but the Wardwell woman chokes all the same, actually chokes on the whiskey attempting to slide down her throat, and she raises a napkin to the corners of her mouth, a mortified expression contorting her features. Zelda fights the urge to smirk.

“Oh God, I am so sorry, Zelda.”

“Don’t be.” Startled blue eyes connect with unphased green, blink a few times before she clears her throat.

“Not a nice man?” And Zelda _does _laugh at that, though it’s borderline humorless. She hums deep in her throat, tilting the rest of the liquid in the tumbler so it pours into her mouth, and stands to fetch them refills.

“Not exactly, no.” She tops off the brunette’s glass while she has the bottle in hand, though judging by the telltale flush in her cheeks, Zelda knows she probably shouldn’t. Mary Wardwell does not strike her as the type to indulge frequently, but who is she to deny a guest in her home?

“I had a fiancé,” she says, bringing the glass to her lips. “He died, too.”

Something twists inside Zelda’s gut. “Recently?” she asks, but when she looks into the eyes staring into hers, she knows.

“Yes,” she confirms. “Very recently.”

“I’m sorry,” Zelda says, and she means it. She reaches a hand to bridge the distance between them, places it softly atop one of the other woman’s. She’s met with a tired smile, and it’s only then that Zelda notices the deep indentions carved under her eyes. Zelda doesn’t ask how he died; she doubts the other woman even knows.

“He was my best friend,” she says, and Zelda doesn’t know if she can stomach more of this, already feels the souring in her stomach when she thinks about _why _this woman is suffering. It could be said that Zelda had never possessed a fondness for any sort for mortals, but she didn’t want them to suffer. And from what she’s gleamed from the faraway look that often graces her face and _this_, she knows that Mary Wardwell has suffered plenty.

“Come,” she says, standing and holding a hand out. The hand placed into her palm is shaky but firm, fingers gripping tightly as she allows Zelda to pull her up and lead her out of the room.

“Where…”

“I saw some old photo albums in the study earlier. I spotted you in one of them with Sabrina at some school function. I think I saw some of her baby pictures, too.”

“Oh, I do _love_ babies,” she says, and when Zelda turns to look, a genuine smile has found its place on her lips. Zelda can’t stop the chuckle from rising in her chest.

It’s nearly midnight before they’ve sifted through the bulk of the albums; there was indeed one of Ms. Wardwell with Sabrina, both smiling brightly in front of the punch bowl at one of Baxter High’s dances. The blue in the Wardwell woman’s dress, Zelda notes absentmindedly, did something positively ethereal for her eyes. She looks up, in what she hopes is a discreet manner, to catch a glimpse of the suspects in question. The fire from the hearth seems to pool in them. _Like hellfire_, Zelda thinks, and before she can look away, they’re flicking up to meet hers. A warm smile slides into place, and Zelda has to physically refrain from brushing fallen hair from a flushed face.

“Well,” Zelda manages, chastising herself silently. How far had she fallen that she would resort to lusting after a mortal woman? It didn’t matter how ridiculously blue her eyes were, it simply wasn’t done. Not where Zelda Spellman was concerned, and especially when she knew things about said woman that she could never admit to knowing. Things which would snap her mortal sanity in two if she were to know them.

“Oh, heavens,” Ms. Wardwell says, and Zelda doesn’t have enough energy to refrain from curling her lip in distaste this time around. “Look at the time. I should really be getting home.”

“How do you plan to go home without a car?”

“Well, I was planning to walk,” she says, and the seriousness with which she says it makes Zelda laugh in disbelief.

“In this cold? Please, you’d freeze to death,” she says, rising from her seated position near the fire. “You’ll stay here. We have plenty space.”

“Oh, really, Ms. Spellman, you’ve been so kind already. I couldn’t-”

“You can, and you will,” Zelda says, and this time she receives only a bashful smile in response. “Besides, Sabrina would never forgive me if I sent her favorite teacher to a cold grave.”

∆ ∆ ∆

She’s woken from slumber by screams. Her first thoughts fall to Sabrina, and then to Hilda, and then finally, when she shakes off the last dredges of sleep enough to think clearly, to the woman she’d left in the guest room. She doesn’t bother with her robe or even slippers, sliding out of bed and following the noise until she’s standing before a closed door. She doesn’t knock, knows that it wouldn’t be heard, much less acknowledged, so she braces herself before pushing open the door and peeking into the moonlit room.

The other woman is a convulsing shapeless creature in the middle of the bed, all twisting limbs and clenched fists, screams unlike anything Zelda’s ever heard forcing their way from her throat. For such a slight woman, such sounds take her by surprise. Zelda’s by her side in an instant, a flurry of hands that she doesn’t know where to place before settling on shoulders.

“Mary!” she yells, pressing her into the bed firmly, and she’s nearly thrown to the floor from the spastic movements of the brunette. She hikes up her gown and crawls atop her, using her whole body as a grounding force. “Mary, wake up!”

It takes a few more moments, but slowly the convulsions stop, and teary eyes flutter open, mouthfuls of air swallowed between trembling lips as she fights for breath. Tears leak from wild eyes, shaking hands coming up to grip Zelda’s sides.

“_Zelda_,” she breathes, and then she breaks, bringing her hands to her face and letting out sob after sob, doesn’t stop even when Zelda slides next to her and wraps her own trembling arms around her frame. “I couldn’t- he was just… he was dead _right there, _and I-”

“It’s okay now, you’re safe,” Zelda whispers, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and running her hands soothingly across her back. She’s reminded of a time when Sabrina was small, when she would wake crying in the night and Zelda would hold her until she fell back to sleep. Sabrina’s eyes had never seemed quite so haunted as those of this slight woman, though.

“No, no,” she sobs, furiously shaking her head. “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me. Oh God_, what did I do?” _

“You did nothing, Mary,” Zelda breathes out, fighting back tears of her own. “It was just a dream.” But she knows it wasn’t. Lilith had used her body for who knows what, and if there’s one thing that Zelda knows for certain, it’s that the body doesn’t forget.

Eventually, the body racking sobs die out, replaced by soft whimpers that cut right into Zelda’s stomach, and at that particular moment, she _hates _Lilith for what she’s done to this mortal. She knows why she did it, knows that someone had to bear the brunt of the ordeal, but it shouldn’t have been Mary Wardwell. She wonders if Lilith knows what she’s done. She wonders if she’d care.

“I’m sorry,” the woman whispers when she’s able.

“Don’t,” is all Zelda says, tightening her arms momentarily around the small frame next to her. “How often?”

“Every night,” she admits after a moment, and Zelda grimaces. “They vary. But they all feel the same.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, dropping another kiss to the crown of her head. And then, “Would it help if I stayed?”

“I couldn’t ask you to-”

“You didn’t. I offered.” She disentangles herself from the woman and slips out of bed. “I’ll be right back.”

Between her and Hilda, there had never been a question as to whom was more inclined when it came to herbs and potions. But there was a time when sleep only graced Zelda after she’d downed a sleeping draught, so this particular recipe is relatively easy to call to memory. She masks the taste with honey and carries it with shaking hands, Mary asking no questions and taking it gratefully.

Sleep comes swiftly after that, Mary’s body curled around Zelda’s seamlessly, and Zelda thinks briefly how warm she feels before succumbing to dreams of her own.

∆ ∆ ∆

They fall into a routine of sorts after that first night. Zelda tells herself that she lets the Wardwell woman into her bed out of pity, that it’s atonement on her Queen’s behalf. That doesn’t account for the waking hours the brunette spends inside the Spellman Mortuary, or the times Zelda goes over for dinner. But honestly, who can blame her? The woman can _cook_. Mary had attempted to teach Zelda a recipe- a simple one, she had sworn- but somehow Zelda had managed to catch the pot on actual _fire_, and if there weren’t the very real fear of burning the cottage down looming overhead, Zelda would have laughed at the other woman’s face, eyes moon-wide and mouth agape as she watched the fire born out of noodles. Apparently, Zelda hadn’t added enough water. Mary had promptly restricted her to stirring duty, and stirring duty _only_.

Mary loves her job, genuinely enjoys going to work despite the melodramatics of the teenagers present, and sometimes when she’s telling Zelda about her lesson plans, about something that she’d happened upon in the Greendale library, she _glows_. She’s enamored with history, especially that of Greendale, and when Zelda admits to knowing a fair amount about the Greendale witch trials, she can feel the excitement radiating from the other woman’s body. She’s cautious when divulging information, always minding her words and making sure to not come off as _overly _knowledgeable, but Mary doesn’t seem to mind if the beaming of her smile is anything to go by.

She is frustrating at times, almost childlike in her naivety. She eats the entire gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream, ignoring Zelda’s warning of an impending tummy ache but always crawling next to her on the couch with a pitiful expression when said tummy ache arises. She comes to the mortuary one day with a _dog_ of all things, ribs protruding from its sides and mangy hair presenting itself in sporadic patches over its flea-bitten body. Apparently, she had spotted it on the side of the road and immediately pulled over to rescue it, and she sends Zelda to the store for flea shampoo while she works over his body with one of Zelda’s combs, flinging fleas down the drain of the guest bath and subsequently rendering the whole room permanently soiled in Zelda’s mind. Mary calls him Tramp (after her favorite movie, naturally), and Zelda is met with a horrified expression when she throws the word “pound” into the mix.

“Fine. But he’s not sleeping in the bed,” she says, and Mary nods obediently but gives Tramp a conspiratorial glance when she thinks Zelda isn’t looking, and she knows that it’s a battle already lost.

She still has nightmares, but at the first whimper, Zelda’s there holding her close and whispering sweet nothings into her ear until she’s calm again. There’s now an additional toothbrush keeping Zelda’s company on her sink, and one for Zelda at the cottage, and more than one of her dresses has wound up in Mary’s closet. It is so un-Zelda, falling into step beside a mortal woman, aligning her habits with hers. Perhaps, she thinks with not a small amount of disdain, she’s softening in her age. The domesticity of it all nearly sneaks up on Zelda, and she probably would have never noticed if it weren’t for her sister’s comments.

“You sure are spending a lot of time with Ms. Wardwell, Zelda.”

“And what of it? It’s not as though I have you to constantly entertain me with your childish antics anymore, do I?”

“Alright then, no need to get snippy. I was only saying…”

“Saying _what_, Hilda?”

A sigh, and then, “Nothing, Zelds. I wasn’t saying anything.”

But she _had_ said something, and now Zelda notices when her shoulder instinctively brushes up against Mary’s when they’re walking through town, and when she makes Mary’s drink instinctively as she goes to make her own. She casts protection spells in her name nearly every night and doesn’t hesitate before opening her arms and allowing the other woman to slink down next to her in bed. There is a line, Zelda realizes, between atonement and devotion. Zelda can’t quite distinguish between them, anymore.

∆ ∆ ∆

She falls into love in the spring. Mary gardens, because well, of course Mary gardens, and they’re out in the space behind her cottage. It’s warm, one of the first warm days since the brutally cold winter, and the sun is beaming down as the small woman hacks away until the earth gives, using her fingers to tackle the more resistant roots. She plants seeds in rows and pats the earth gently atop them, dark hair falling into her eyes but a serene smile firmly in place. A hallowed image, in Zelda’s mind. She wishes she had brought along Hilda’s polaroid.

“Zelda?”

“Mmm?”

“Could you bring me the geraniums?”

She sets her newspaper aside and rises from her place on the porch, does what she’s asked. When Mary looks up from her place on the ground, the breath is stolen from her lungs. There’s a spattering of dirt on her left cheekbone and more on her chin, and her eyes glow up at her in the morning sun, and Zelda is _stricken_ by the need to touch, to feel. So she does, drops her hand to gently cup a pink-tinged cheek, brushes off the dirt with a soft thumb. Mary leans into her palm, eyes fluttering shut briefly before opening again to peer up at the witch. A lazy smile forms on her lips.

“Thank you,” she says lowly, and Zelda can only hum in response, giving her cheek one more pass with her thumb, though the dirt is now long gone, before dropping her hand. If she thinks she hears a shaky intake of breath come from below her, she chalks it up to her own imagination.

She’s afraid; she would be lying if she said she weren’t. She watches Mary as she scrambles eggs, humming along to a tune only she is privy to, and the fluttering in her gut makes her nauseated. She holds her in the night, smells the sweet lavender of her shampoo, and feels cold chills run up her spine. The woman is _good_, kind and warm, and Zelda would damn herself to heaven before ruining that. She feels the corpse of her former self rolling in its grave: Zelda Spellman placing the wellbeing of a mortal above her own want. A sight to be seen, truly.

This resolve is not destined for longevity. They’re at Mary’s cottage for the night, Zelda lounging comfortably on the sofa with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette perched precariously within the other. Mary, at Zelda’s insistence, is sat at the piano. Mary plays piano, because well, of course she does. And she doesn’t just _play _ piano; apparently, she had been quite the piano prodigy in her younger years. Her fingers fly effortlessly over the keys, eyes falling shut as she loses herself in the music, and Lilith in hell, what a vision she makes. She’s let her hair out so it falls down her back in a beautiful mess of curls, and Zelda would love nothing more than to run her fingers through it. She’s swallowed by a hoodie twice her size, and not much else, and while Zelda loves that she feels comfortable enough around her to forego pants, even with a hoodie hanging nearly to her knees, it’s a bit too easy to allow for her eyes to wander.

Zelda’s eyes drift shut, and she doesn’t realize that Mary’s stopped playing until the soft sound of a violin fills the room. _Of course, she plays the violin, too_, Zelda thinks, but upon opening her eyes, she realizes that the sound is emanating from a record player spinning in the corner, and the woman is no longer a safe distance across the room, but rather standing before her, hand extended outward and a goofy grin making her eyes crinkle adorably.

“Dance with me,” she says, and despite herself, Zelda finds herself smiling incredulously up at her. Against every sound-minded cell in her body screaming at her to do the exact opposite, she places her own hand in the proffered one and allows herself to be pulled upward. Her body fits faultlessly against Mary’s, and then they’re swaying, Mary’s head resting on Zelda’s shoulder. She _sighs_, deep and happy, and it’s as easy as breathing.

The record scratches, jolting Zelda out of her silent reverie, and she opens her eyes, breath catching in her throat when she peers down into blue eyes turned stormy grey. She can’t resist raising a hand to brush an errant lock of hair behind her ear, and when Mary turns her face into the open palm, nuzzling it softly before dropping a kiss to the center, Zelda knows she’s done for.

The sensible part of Zelda, which used to account for a solid 95% of her being, knows that she should bring her arms from around the other woman’s waist, that she should place their empty wine glasses in the sink and call it a night. The sensible part of Zelda goes into system failure the moment warm lips are pressed against her own, a ghost of a thing at first. Mary trembles in her arms, and Zelda realizes that she isn’t sure, that she’s worried she’s overstepping a boundary, that she’s misread the signs. And all Zelda can think to do is assure her that, no, she most certainly has not misread the signs. That Zelda Spellman is hopelessly in love with her, and that she can hardly believe that she’s stood in this room with this glorious woman, and that she’s allowed to kiss her.

So she does, presses more insistently, cups a colored cheek with a shaking hand as Mary sighs against her. She’s being pulled close by a hand at the small of her back until she’s flush against her body, and a soft groan slides out before she can stop it. Mary takes the opportunity to slide a tongue between wet lips, and then Zelda is well and _truly _ done for, groaning more loudly at the feeling of a tongue tracing the roof of her mouth.

She allows herself to be lowered to the couch, pulling Mary down with her, and she cranes her neck upward when Mary begins dropping wet kisses down the line of her neck. Her hands scrabble for purchase, sliding beneath the oversized sweatshirt and up a lithe back, fingers slipping under the hem of her underwear and kneading her ass, and Mary _keens_ above her, mouth clamping around the skin behind her ear and sucking. She’s leaving a mark, her remaining sensibility argues, but Zelda bends her knee and slots it between Mary’s, and Zelda finds that she doesn’t give a damn about a mark when Mary’s moving against her like that.

“_Christ_,” she breathes out, all rocking hips and swollen lips, and it shoots enough perspective into Zelda’s veins for her to pause, retracting her hands from beneath the fabric and placing them firmly on her shoulders. Mary growls, chases her mouth with a determined glint shining in fervid eyes.

“Mary, wait-” She’s cut off with bared teeth and her bottom lip being pulled between them, biting down just hard enough to elicit a low moan. When Mary releases her, she’s looking down at her with a self-satisfied smirk, and Zelda could melt from the sheer intensity of her gaze. But she doesn’t, because she tries again, “Mary, there’s something…” More kisses pressed to her neck, inching lower until a bite is placed on her clavicle, and Zelda’s eyes roll to the back of her head. “There’s something you need to…need to _ahh_… to know about me.”

“I don’t care,” is all the response she gets, hips resuming their rocking on her bent knee, a hand palming her breast through the thin fabric.

“But Mary-”

“_Please_, Zelda,” she breathes out, finally ceasing her movements long enough to pull away and peer down into Zelda’s eyes. Her pupils are blown to heaven, lips pink and swollen and hair a tangled mess from where Zelda’s fingers had run through it. And how, pray tell, is Zelda supposed to deny her when she looks at her like _that_ ?

She wiggles out from beneath her, ignoring the whimper of dismay from Mary at the loss of contact, and pulls her up by the elbow, leading her into the back bedroom. Because if Mary Wardwell is asking to fuck her, Zelda hardly has the wherewithal to refuse her, but she’ll do it right.

She lays her out on the bed, crawls until she’s hovering above her and drops a kiss to her forehead, the apples of her cheeks, each of her closed eyelids. Mary’s squirming beneath her, and Zelda smiles softly at the impatience manifesting beneath her. She places a single kiss to her parted lips before tracing the curve of her neck with a sharp nail. Now, it’s her turn to kiss along the hard line of her jaw, up and up until she takes the fleshy lobe of an ear between her teeth and bites down gently.

Mary hooks a leg around her, sharply drags her back to her mouth so she can part her lips with her tongue, hands running up her thighs, hiking the fabric of Zelda’s dress around her waist. Zelda chuckles into her mouth, rewards her with a thigh pressed firmly to a sticky center, and the warmth she’s met with has her quickening her pace, hooking her thumbs under the bottom of Mary’s sweatshirt and pulling up, Mary bending at the waist to expedite the process. When she’s finally, _finally _ gloriously bared to her, Zelda can’t wipe the grin from her face for the life of her.

“Beautiful,” she whispers, catching a glimpse of flushed cheeks reddening even further before she’s dropping to kiss down her neck, hands running across bare flesh and her mouth leaving a wet trail along her chest.

She finds traces of a body possessed, then, when there’s nothing impeding her vision from connecting with the woman’s middle. Just below her right breast, a puckered scar rears its head, and Zelda feels Mary tense beneath her when her fingertips lightly trace over it. She looks up to find wide eyes boring down at her, and she wastes no time before covering it with a warm tongue, a sharp gasp leaving the other woman as hands come down to thread in coppery golden hair.

“Beautiful,” she repeats against skin, placing a final kiss to the raised flesh before resuming her downward path. Lilith may have left her mark on this body, but when she hooks her fingers in the waistband of silky underthings and drags them down, she smiles a positively wicked grin. The soft, throaty whimpers sounding in an otherwise silent room, the soft pads of fingers trailing through her hair, anchoring and encouraging, the warmth radiating out from in front of her: that’s all Mary, and Lilith be damned, but she couldn’t love her more if she tried


	2. perhaps the teeth remember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allow me to preface this chapter with 3 things:
> 
> 1\. Thank you very much for the kudos and comments. They truly mean the world to your average fanfic junkie who doubles as a slut for validation.
> 
> 2\. I wrote a very large part of this chapter while I was very inebriated. You all have Debbie (my drunk alter-ego) to thank for any typos.
> 
> 3\. Debbie is a sadistic bitch.
> 
> You've been warned ;)

She wakes to the sun already having risen above the trees and streaming in through carelessly drawn curtains. Waking up alone is not uncommon, Mary always rising more or less with the sun, but this body ache, the delicious soreness she feels when she arches her back and raises her arms above her head, is a new development.

She extracts herself from the warmth of the bed slowly, pulls Mary’s robe over her bare form and follows the scent of a breakfast well underway into the kitchen. And there she is, encased in the glory that is an oversized sweatshirt and knee-high socks, hunched over something sizzling in a frying pan. Her hair is pulled up messily and reveals dark marks set against the backdrop of an alabaster neck, and the burn in Zelda’s lips has her ambling lazily to stand behind her, brushing away deviant raven hairs and covering a particularly stunning purplish bruise with her lips. The woman beneath her jolts slightly, then sighs and cranes her neck to the side, leaning back more fully into Zelda as the witch works to leave a wet trail down to her shoulder.

“Good morning to you too,” she breathes out, all satiny and slow, cheeks dimpling as a smile slides into place.

“Mmm,” Zelda acknowledges, ending her warm assault with a kiss placed to a defined cheekbone before extracting her arms. “Very good morning, yes.” She pours them glasses of orange juice and retrieves plates from the cupboard, sets the table with an expression too serene to be mistaken for anything other than an afterglow. Mary slinks down beside her at the table, sliding a plate of eggs and bacon in front of her. Tramp is whining for scraps at their feet, and Mary is telling her about a field trip she’s planned to take her class to the Greendale Museum of History, and as far as Zelda is concerned, everything is right in the world.

∆ ∆ ∆

She knows she has to tell her. She brings lunch to Baxter high (roast chicken and fries from the market around the corner) and sits in her classroom during her free period, and it’s in the back of her mind as they eat. They lie in bed on lazy Sunday mornings, neither quite yet able to disentangle their limbs from one another and begin the day, and the words are pounding against the roof of her mouth. Hilda invites them to Doctor Cee’s for supper one night, and her sister slips up and mentions Ambrose just barely managing to outrun a banshee in the Austrian wilderness. Zelda sees Mary’s eyes widen for a fraction of a section before she ducks her head and stabs at a Brussel sprout with her fork, and Zelda thinks, _This is it. I’ll tell her now. _But the words stick in her throat like peanut butter, almost suffocating her, and she excuses herself to the washroom before the woman notices.

It’s not that she _wants _to tell her. It’s that Mary still has bad days, days where she’s left emotionally crippled from the events of the night. And Zelda knows why, is harboring this horrible secret that she knows she shouldn’t be holding. The woman babbles about ravens and blue fire, about blood, _so much blood_, and a monstrosity of a creature born from her own rib. She’s ashamed, tells Zelda that she wouldn’t blame her if she called her crazy, but Zelda shushes her, says that she is no such thing.

One particularly nasty day, she’s so bad off that Zelda nearly calls for the doctor. Her eyes are bloodshot, and her shaking hasn’t abated in the slightest. She’s thrown up everything in her stomach from the severity of her sobs, and she’s so exhausted that she has to be carried back to the bed.

“No doctor,” she says feebly, wracking frame folding in on itself beneath the comforter.

“But Mary-”

“_No doctor_,” she repeats, the air hissing from between clenched teeth. When she peers up, Zelda’s heart breaks.

“Tell me what you need,” Zelda begs.

“Just… just hold me.”

So Zelda slips off her heels and slides beneath the sheets, hugging the slight woman from behind, and mumbles out every calming spell she can recall. Mary sleeps into the next morning, though the same cannot be said for Zelda.

∆ ∆ ∆

“Zelda _Phiona_ Spellman,” a voice rings out from a swinging front door, and the pen clasped in Zelda’s hand stills, her eyes widening. She knows that tone, has heard it enough time to know that when Mary uses _that _voice, she means business. Zelda Phiona Spellman is in trouble.

“Yes, dearest?” she calls back coyly, hoping the honey-laden tenure of her voice is enough to at least lessen the force brought in by the hurricane of a woman approaching her. Zelda knows what her voice does to Mary; she’s told her as much on multiple occasions.

This does not appear to be such an occasion. The brunette stops when she reaches the doorframe of the study, glare firmly in place and hands finding anchor on cocked hips, and Zelda would find the sight quite sexy if she weren’t the slightest bit afraid for her life.

“Bad day at work?” she asks, but the woman gives nothing, glare remaining and blue eyes flaring with anger.

“Oh, work was just fine,” she says at last, bringing her arms up to fold against her chest, walking slowly to stand before Zelda. Despite the woman’s slight frame, from Zelda’s place on the couch she finds herself more than a little intimidated when she gazes up at the woman towering over her. A bit intimidated, and maybe a bit turned on too, if she’s being honest. “Anything you want to get off your chest?”

Icy hot chills prickle the back of Zelda’s neck, and the air abandons her lungs. _She knows_, she thinks. _She knows, and she’s angry. _

“You wouldn’t be referring to my blouse, would you?” she makes an attempt at levity, mostly for herself more than for Mary, but the woman standing before her rolls her eyes. She does not laugh.

“Hilda called me today,” she says, and an idea begins to thread together in Zelda’s mind, but she doesn’t breathe easily yet. “Would you care to explain to me why I had to find out from my girlfriend’s _sister _that her birthday passed _yesterday_?”

Then Zelda does regain the ability to draw breath, the beginnings of a smirk taking root on her mouth.

“Your girlfriend, huh?” is all she says, watching as the color drains from Mary’s face, as her mouth drops into a perfect ‘o’ and the anger flickers, quickly replaced by the beginnings of embarrassment. “Would that happen to be me?”

“Oh, stop,” Mary deflects, picking up a throw pillow and flinging it toward the sitting witch. Zelda catches it with ease. “Why didn’t you tell me, Zelda?”

“Because it’s not a big deal,” she replies easily with a shrug. And it’s true. When you’ve lived through centuries, birthdays come and go until they eventually lose their general appeal. Judging from the expression on Mary’s face, she does not agree with the sentiment.

“It most certainly _is _ a big deal,” she counters, dropping down on the couch and picking up Zelda’s feet, depositing them on her thighs. “To me,” she adds softly, running a hand over one of Zelda’s socked ankles, eyes downcast. And then it slaps Zelda right across her face, that this would be the first birthday they’d spend together, and by not telling Mary, the other woman assumed that Zelda didn’t care enough to include her.

“Oh, darling,” she breathes out, closing her notebook and setting it on the side table before sidling across the couch, resting her head under the crook of Mary’s chin. “I didn’t even think about it, honestly. I should have told you.”

“Yes,” is the response she gets, but arms come up to wrap around her frame, and she knows that she’s forgiven.

“I’m really rather rotten at the whole _girlfriend_ thing,” she says, craning her head to give Mary a slight grin.

“Well, you’d better learn fast,” Mary says, leaning down to drop a kiss to Zelda’s mouth. She only hums in response, turning and rising up so she can pluck the pins from raven hair, fingers working to untangle the knots as Mary’s mouth moves against hers. They break apart after a few moments, Zelda somehow winding up straddling Mary’s lap and Mary’s hands finding purchase in the dimples of Zelda’s lower back.

Zelda slinks down so she can rest her head in the crook of Mary’s neck once more, heart pounding wild but strong against her ribcage.

“So,” Mary begins, breaths coming in short bursts but voice clear. “Exactly how old are you now?” And Zelda _laughs _at that, the sound ringing through the mortuary. _If only she knew._

“Hmm,” she begins, nuzzling further into her neck. “How old do you think I am?”

“Honestly? I don’t know,” Mary admits. “You haven’t seemed to age a bit since the day I met you.”

Zelda chuckles, shakes her head lightly. “Good genes, I suppose.”

There’s a pause, and the hand on her back stills momentarily before resuming its lazy patterns.

“I suppose.”

∆ ∆ ∆

The following day, Mary bakes her a carrot cake after learning from Hilda that it’s Zelda’s favorite (although _attempts to bake her a carrot cake _ might be the more appropriate phrasing), and it’s truly a sight to be seen. Apparently, Mary’s prowess in the kitchen does not extend to cake baking. Zelda comes back to the cottage after spending the day lecturing and finds her sitting cross legged on the kitchen counter, a bottle of wine gripped by the neck in one hand and a cookbook resting on her knee as she reads over it with a perplexed expression on her face. There’s flour coating her apron and all over her face, and when she notices Zelda standing in the doorframe, she looks up with a crestfallen expression.

“It’s all wrong, Zelda,” she says, bringing the bottle up by the neck and taking a deep swig. Zelda is forced to stifle a rising chuckle, making her way over to the woman and stepping between her legs. She notices that she’s even managed to get flour on her socks. “Hilda gave me your family recipe, and I _tried_, Zelda. I tried 3 times! But the first one came out tasting like _cornbread_, and the second-”

She’s cut off by a smiling mouth pressed to her own open one, and Zelda wastes no time before slipping her tongue between worry-bitten lips, tasting wine and something that reminds her vaguely of a Solstice tree.

“Did you put rosemary in it?” she asks, pulling back slightly to gaze into the woman’s bashful eyes.

“The recipe says to use,” she pauses, squints down at the paper, “_cloves_, but I didn’t have any, so I figured that rosemary would do just as nicely. Turns out that they don’t taste the same _at all_.”

Zelda laughs at that, loud and happy, and drags Mary’s downturned lips back to hers, kissing the frown clean off. The other woman sighs into her mouth, opens her lips when she feels Zelda’s tongue run along her bottom lip, wraps her legs around her body and pulls her flush against her. And she very well may taste like a Solstice tree, and the kitchen may look like someone crafted a flour bomb and subsequently set it off in the middle of the room, but Zelda can’t remember a time when she’d ever felt so whole.

“I love you,” she breathes out when they break for air, and Mary’s eyes are blown wide, shocked and staring back into Zelda’s like she doesn’t quite understand, but Zelda doesn’t care. Because she’s loved this woman for too long without telling her, and she needs her to know it.

“Even though I messed up your cake?” she asks sheepishly, casting a sideways glance to the misshapen lumps cooling on a cake pan.

“Darling,” Zelda breathes out, leaning in until her lips are ghosting the shell of Mary’s ear, a wicked grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I’ll have _plenty _to eat tonight, cake or no cake.”

∆ ∆ ∆

Mary’s sleeping challenges aside, things run smoothly for them, and Zelda realizes that for the first time in her life, she’s in a stable relationship. The sensible part of her says that it can’t be a stable relationship when Zelda is keeping secrets from her, but she doesn’t need to be reminded of that, and so she keeps a heavy lid on said sensible part. It’s down to a precarious 37% of her being, at least where Mary is concerned anyway, and depleting at an alarming rate.

Things run smoothly until the night she gets a frantic call from Sabrina, informing her of a desperate need for her presence at the Academy, and fast. Apparently, the banshee had followed Ambrose home from Europe and is now wreaking havoc upon the witches and warlocks of her coven. She has no doubt that with Sabrina’s recent developments, her niece could put down the angry creature with little to no problem, but there is a frenzied coven to be dealt with on top of an angry spirit, and so Zelda goes.

Mary doesn’t understand, Zelda can see it in her eyes, but she sends her off with a kiss and a promise to call if she needs her. Zelda goes with not a small amount of reluctance, but duty to her coven must come first, which is how she finds herself stepping off of the cottage porch and transmutating herself into Academy walls.

Calming a coven of hormonal witches and warlocks woken up by the shrieks of a disgruntled spirit in the dead of night may sound like a tough job, but Zelda can attest to it being infinitely worse than anyone could possibly fathom. They are not Spellmans, these young adults, which means they are not accustomed to monsters breaking through the peace of stone walls with their personal vendettas, however those vendettas may manifest.

But Zelda was right: Sabrina dispatches the creature with ease, trapping it in a vase and sealing it with a spell before it can rack up too high a tab in property damage, and Sabrina gives the vase to Zelda to lock in the Mortuary basement when she is able to leave, though that is not for quite some time. She stays until sunrise, consoling and explaining and comforting until her voice is raw and her back aches. By the time she goes, nearly every soul within the Academy is slumbering in their beds, and Zelda longs to do the same. A quick drop in at the Spellman house to tuck the creature in its own bed of sorts, a sealed vault harboring all manner of chaos that had made the mistake of crossing a Spellman path in one way or another, and then she’s transmutating back to the cottage.

She finds Mary in a heap on the bathroom floor, dried tear tracks lining her face but blessedly asleep. When Zelda hooks one arm behind her back and another under her legs and begins the journey to to the bed, the woman stirs.

“_Zelda_,” she whimpers, burying her face into Zelda’s neck and refusing to let go even when she’s deposited into the sheets. Zelda’s climbing in beside her and stroking her hair when she hears, “She was inside me, Zelda.” She feels fresh tears fall onto her neck, and she holds on tighter. “She was inside of me, and it hurt. It hurt _so much_.”

Zelda resolves to come clean to Mary the following day.

∆ ∆ ∆

Her resolve is shaken when Mary is back to her usual self the next day, bustling around the cottage in a flurry of baby blues and bright yellows. Zelda always loves her in that dress. There’s music filtering softly from the record player and the windows are flung wide, letting in the spring wind. It’s warming up considerably now, only a few more weeks until summer officially begins, and Mary’s plants in the windowsills are beginning to sprout.

But she knows, _knows _that she can’t keep this from her any longer, can’t fall further and further into love with a woman who she’s not being honest with. Especially about something so relevant. So she plants a kiss on her temple and promises to be back soon, fleeing to the Spellman Mortuary in order to retrieve something she realizes she should have had since the beginning.

She returns within the hour, and Mary’s eyebrows furrow in curiosity when she eyes the device in Zelda’s hand. Curiosity quickly turns to embarrassment when Zelda lifts the camera and snaps a candid photo of her, hands swiftly brought up the cover a blushing face.

“We’ll have none of that,” Zelda chides, going over to wrestle Mary’s hands away from her face. She’s flushed, eyes reluctant, but she relents. Zelda places a ghost of a kiss to her lips before stepping back once again.

She carries on like this for most of the day, during which they go grocery shopping and take Tramp for a walk, and it’s so terribly domestic, such an average day, but Zelda snaps photos like she’s running out of time. She knows that she probably is. By the time dinner is set on the table and Zelda has enough pictures to last lifetimes, Mary has her suspicions.

“Zelda, sweetie, what is it?” she asks over a plate of chicken pot pie that Hilda sent over. “Something’s bothering you.”

“Yes,” she admits, allowing a sad smile to mar her features before reaching over and taking one of Mary’s hands within her own. “Yes, something is bothering me.”

“Well, what is it?” she asks, concern so evident on her beautiful, beautiful face that Zelda’s heart constricts in her chest. And then, “You know you can tell me anything.”

“This isn’t just anything, darling,” Zelda hears herself saying, and her resolve hardens when she sees the lines on Mary’s forehead deepen. Dragging this out won’t do either of them any favors. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. Something about… well, something about… what I am.”

There’s a heavy silence, and then Mary’s hand is leaving Zelda’s in favor of grasping her fork and digging into the pie. “A witch, you mean.”

Zelda’s eyes widen in what she’s sure is a comic manner, eyeing the woman across from her with shock written clear as day across her features. The other woman appears nonplussed, bringing a glass of wine to her lips and taking a small sip. She meets Zelda’s wide eyes with knowing blue.

“You…how did... I don’t understand, you _know_?”

“Mmm,” Mary hums out, bringing a napkin up the dab the corners of her mouth. “I don’t know if I’d say that I _knew_. But I definitely had my suspicions.” When Zelda says nothing, she continues, “We spend an awful lot of time together for something like that to get passed me, Zelda. Did you honestly think I wouldn’t find out?”

“Well, I had _hoped _I could be the one to tell you…”

“Sure took you long enough,” is all the response she gets, but there’s no malice in the words. Just unending patience, and perhaps a bit of humor. “I mean, really, one time I caught you standing over the kettle and _talking _to it. I hear you at night, sometimes, too. When you think I’m sleeping.” And then there’s a deep fondness peering back at Zelda, and she has to force away a lump in her throat. Mary brings a forkful of veggies to her mouth, pausing just briefly to chuckle and add, “And there’s the matter of Hilda casually bringing up the banshee as a dinner conversation piece.”

“I’m going to take shovel to her skull,” she says matter-of-factly. “Why didn’t you _say_ anything?”

“I figured that when you were ready, you’d tell me yourself,” Mary replies, watching as Zelda drops her head into open hands. She reaches out, takes one of them firmly between her own, and speaks softly. “I’m not angry, Zelda. I just wish you could have told me sooner.”

“I wanted to! Satan, I wanted to, so many times,” she lets out, and Mary’s eyes widen at the use of Lucifer’s name, but she doesn’t say anything. “I was afraid.”

“You don’t have to be,” Mary assures her, bringing Zelda’s hand up to place a kiss to her palm. But it’s not enough, because Zelda is still shaking, still worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.

“There’s more,” she admits, but Mary doesn’t release her hands, doesn’t pull away.

“What? Don’t tell me you have to wear a pointy hat,” she chuckles, but the laugh dies on her lips when she catches the tears pooling in green eyes. “Zelda, I promise you-”

“_Don’t do that_,” Zelda warns with a shaky breath, eyes flashing dangerously and then softening when she catches the startled expression staring back at her. She steels herself. “It’s about your nightmares.”

And then Mary _is_ pulling away, releasing Zelda’s hand so she can sit upright in her chair. They don’t talk about her nightmares, not in the light of day, anyway, and her eyes become haunted, wider.

“What?” she asks, and tears are falling freely down Zelda’s cheeks now, but she doesn’t allow herself to stop. Not when she’s come this far.

“They…” A shaky breath is drawn between her lips, and then, “They aren’t only dreams.”

“What are you talking about, Zelda? Of course they are,” she says dismissively, picking her fork back up to push carrots around her plate, but she doesn’t bring it up to her mouth.

“_No, Mary_,” Zelda hears herself say, and she hates the way the other woman suddenly looks stricken. Hates that she’s the reason for it. “They aren’t.”

∆ ∆ ∆

She explains as much as she can, which, granted, isn’t everything but it’s more than she ever hoped to have to explain. She tells her of Lilith, how she used her body as a ploy to get closer to Sabrina, how did didn’t even know Mary Wardwell wasn’t Mary Wardwell until Lilith revealed herself to them. She tells her of Sabrina’s defiance when it came to signing the Book of the Beast, then of Lucifer’s plan for her to descend into hell at his side and rule. She tells her of Lilith’s part in it all, how she was instrumental in the saving of Sabrina’s life and the defeat of the Dark Lord.

She tells her that she doesn’t know what mischief Lilith had gotten up to during her stint on earth, but that she knows it couldn’t have been good. The other woman stays silent through it all, eyes brimming with tears and hurt written all over her face, and Zelda knows that Mary knows this better than anyone. Zelda knows that she sees the horrible things Lilith used her body to do every time she closes her eyes.

When there’s nothing left to say, Mary has emptied both of their glasses and is drinking directly from the bottle now, tears seeping into parted lips every time she takes a staggered breath. She says nothing, and if Zelda was worried before, she’s downright frightened now.

“Mary, are yo-”

“You knew,” she grits out through clenched teeth, and Zelda has to cover her mouth to stop a sob from ripping its way out of her throat. “You knew this whole time.”

“Yes.”

“_You knew_, you fucking _knew_ and you let me…” she cuts herself off with a sob, but she needn’t not finish for Zelda to know anyway. _Zelda knew, and she let Mary fall in love with her anyway. _And then the bottle of wine is thrown against a floral wallpapered surface, crimson liquid dripping down the wall and shattered glass falling to the floors, and Mary is sobbing into her hands. Zelda is out of her chair in an instant, pulling the woman’s shaking frame close against her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Zelda repeats like a chant, tears of her own falling down her face, and though the woman initially fights off Zelda’s embrace, she submits soon enough, turning her face into her neck and crying the most heartbreaking of sounds into it. It takes some time, but when she’s quieted slightly, Zelda falls to her knees beside the chair, pulling Mary’s hands into her own and peering up at her. “Tell me what you need, Mary.”

Silence falls over them, Mary reigning in her tears as best as she can while Zelda looks on, rubbing her hands up and down trembling arms, waiting. There’s a pause, and then Mary takes a breath as though to steel herself, and meets Zelda’s eyes.

“I need you to leave.”

“Mary, I don’t think-”

“I _need_ you to leave,” she says again, like the words are taking up energy she simply doesn’t possess. Her eyes are wild, steely blue, and any traces of warmth from earlier are long gone. “_Please, _Zelda.”

Zelda bows her head, tears dropping onto the floor beneath her as her brain conjures up a memory from a very different time, from a time when Mary was saying those exact words and begging Zelda to touch her instead of leave her. She feels her gut twist, and she thinks briefly that she might throw up, but instead she raises her head back up and nods. Zelda can no more refuse Mary’s requests now than she could when they were voiced with longing. Now, all she hears is hatred, the words of a woman betrayed, and she rises to leave.

She doesn’t go far, drags herself to her car parked in the gravel drive and climbs into the driver’s side. The last thing she’d heard before she’d closed the door behind her was the sound of more glass shattering, and Zelda knows that there will be raging within the Wardwell walls tonight.

∆ ∆ ∆

The moon is high in the sky when the swing of the front door alerts Zelda to another presence, and she takes one look at the brunette stumbling down the front steps before exiting the car. The woman staggers in front of her, eyes rimmed red and bloodshot, hair wild and hands shaking.

“I know what I need,” she says, and it’s barely more than a croaked-out whisper. Zelda nods her head feverishly, takes her by the shoulders and leads her back into the cottage. She brings her to the couch, unsure for barely a moment before choosing to drop down beside her rather than in the armchair across the room. She turns toward Mary, and she waits.

“I know what I need,” she says again, and her eyes refuse to meet Zelda’s, peering down into the lines of her own palms.

“Anything,” Zelda says, reaching out tentatively to grasp her hands, and then more firmly when the slight woman sags against her. Zelda drops a kiss to the crown of her head.

A steadying breath, and then, “I need you to make me forget.”

∆ ∆ ∆

There is a woman: she is a myriad of sharp angles and defined bones, of eyes a frankly terrifying shade of blue, so incredibly sharp it’s as though they’re staring into the very soul of you. She cries in her sleep and lashes out into the dark, could level a house with her screams, a raw mess of shaking fists and thrashing limbs. Sometimes, she loses pieces of herself to her mind, eyes running glassy and teeth grinding together, and sometimes, she loses herself entirely, curled into the fetal position as she murmurs horrible, unspeakable things into the nape of Zelda’s neck. Sometimes, she whispers words in a language that Zelda does not recognize.

But she’s also tremendously soft, good and kind and human. Zelda can think of nothing she’d like to do more than run reverent hands over a soft stomach, watch the trail of gooseflesh that rises in the wake of soft fingertips, each and every time without fail. She drops seeds into the earth and encourages them with softly spoken words and firm hands until they grow into herbs and flowers and vines, until her nails are caked with mud and her skin shines with a thin layer of sweat. She likes mint chocolate chip ice-cream and slow dances to violin records in the living room, and she is the biggest _nerd_ Zelda Spellman has ever had the pleasure of knowing. Her soul is beautiful, and all of this makes Zelda’s bones _ache_ with want, leaves her rearing to set the world on fire if it means delivering peace to her. But this woman would never ask for that; she would never want to watch the world burn, no matter how unkind it had been to her. Instead, she asks for the one thing that Zelda fears most in the universe.

There is a woman: she is tremendously soft, good and kind and human. Her name is Mary. Zelda Spellman loves her terribly, and come sunrise, the woman won’t remember her at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may address your hate mail to Debbie, who will probably read it while laughing over a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. I, on the other hand, implore you to hold on to whatever sliver of hope that you have left. Our story isn't over quite yet.


	3. or the fingers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zelda Spellman: brought to her knees by a mortal woman.

It’s the dead of night, but she calls Hilda anyway, listens as her sister answers with a barely audible greeting. She must hear in Zelda’s voice that something is terribly amiss, because she asks no questions, only says that she’ll be right there, to just hold on.

She keeps her word, materializing in the living room of the cottage not 3 minutes after Zelda hangs up the phone, and it’s a good thing that Mary’s already caught on to the Spellmans being witches. She jolts slightly at the suddenness of a new person in her presence, but aside from that, she does nothing. Hilda’s eyes nearly bug out of her head when she sees the brunette.

“Oh, stupid, stupid Hilda!” she says, pressing a hand to her quickly paling face and turning to Zelda. “I was dead-asleep and you called, and you sounded so _distraught _and I just-”

“Hilda,” Zelda cuts her off with a wave of her hand. “It’s fine. She knows.”

“She…she _knows_?” Her eyes narrow suspiciously, glancing over to the woman in Zelda’s arms for confirmation, and when she sees the slight nod of Mary’s head, she lights up with a smile. “Oh, how lovely! That’s brilliant!” she barks out a laugh, but once she takes in their swollen eyes, the way Mary trembles even with Zelda’s arms wrapped firmly around her shoulders, the smile falls away. “Isn’t it?”

Zelda sighs, whispers something into Mary’s ear and places a small kiss to the woman’s temple, carefully wrapping a quilt around her shoulders before standing. She leads Hilda into the kitchen, and she tells her what she needs to know. By the end of it, Hilda’s eyes are brimming with unshed tears and she’s looking at Zelda with an unbearable sadness tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“_Zelds_,” she whispers, wasting no time before taking her sister into her arms. And it’s like the figurative dam breaks for Zelda, tears rushing from her eyes and soaking through Hilda’s shirt as she sobs into her baby sister’s shoulder, a soothing hand coming up to run through copper curls.

“I would do it,” Zelda says eventually, pulling back slightly. “But…”

“I know,” Hilda assures her. “I’ll do it.”

∆ ∆ ∆

Back in their Academy days, Zelda had excelled, risen to the top of her class at a nearly unprecedented rate and had even been permitted to sit in on a few upper-level classes with the High Priest’s approval. Memorizing incantations came naturally, and she had perfected the art of conjuring and mind control before her 18thbirthday. She ate up everything presented to her with fire in her belly and magic on her fingertips, and if the witch world weren’t so sexist, she would have undoubtedly risen to the position of High Priestess. She was the best of the best, and everyone knew it.

Hilda, on the other hand, had never claimed a passion quite so fierce. She had put forth the minimum, passing her mid-level classes with marks just satisfactory enough to send her on to the next level, but Zelda’s fire had never spread to her more mild-tempered sister. That isn’t to say that Hilda doesn’t possess unique abilities of her own.

Hilda is a people person, has been since she was a little bird of a thing weaving through the crowded, cobblestone paths during street markets and sweet-talking the vendors into giving her small treats wrapped up in pretty blue ribbon. She’s perceptive in a way Zelda never was, is able to wade her way through a person’s mind as easily as she can brew a cup of tea. When she hones this ability, she can peer into the very heart of a person and pull out their deepest, most perverse secrets, can persuade them to admit things they wouldn’t dare under other circumstances. No one is more capable of navigating a human psyche than Hilda, which is why when she agrees to be the one to take Mary’s memories, Zelda is immensely grateful.

“This is a very delicate process,” Hilda says softly, sitting on the edge of the seat across from the two women. “You’ll have to be awake the whole time, conscious. You’ll feel everything.”

“Wait,” Mary replies, raising herself slightly so she can cast furtive glances between the sisters. “There’s not a…a potion? Or, I don’t know, a spell of some kind?”

“I’m afraid not, love. If it were a shorter period of time we were trying to erase, then yes, a spell could work,” Hilda explains patiently. She looks to Zelda cautiously before continuing. “But we’re talking about over a year. I’ll have to go in and strip the memories from…well, from your spirit.”

Mary pinches the bridge of her nose with her fingers, eyes screwing shut and breaths quickening marginally. Zelda rubs soothing circles over her bent frame, and she wishes with everything in her that things were different, that Lilith had chosen some other poor mortal to play puppet show with. She can’t bring herself to feel guilty for it when she witnesses the war raging in the sea-blue eyes of the woman she loves.

“But you don’t have to take everything, right?” she asks finally, but she looks over to her lover beside her, sees the torment laced within the worry lines on her face, and she knows. She’s practically pleading when she turns to Hilda and breathes out, “_Right_?”

“I’m so sorry,” Hilda whispers, and Mary lets out a single cry before covering her mouth with a shaking palm. “It would be too dangerous not to. Making clean cuts is vital, and if I were to pick and choose which threads to leave behind, well… There would be fuzzy spots, and you’d run a very good chance of losing your mind all together.”

A silence descends upon them then, broken only by Mary’s soft whimpers. The tears trailing down Zelda’s cheeks are silent, but they burn all the same. She wants to scream, to howl until her voice is raw and her throat aches, to shout that it just isn’t _fucking fair_ how she finally finds a person who fits so seamlessly into her life, who makes her feel things she’s never felt in her centuries on this earth, and now she’s being forced to give her up. She hears the ghost of her mother in her ear telling her that life isn’t fair, and she has to bite back a snarl. She knows, dammit. _She knows._

“I’ll give you two a moment,” Hilda says graciously, stepping into the kitchen. When she’s gone, Mary turns, peers up through tear-soaked lashes and falls into her, head tucking beneath Zelda’s chin.

“_Zelda_,” she cries, so much hopelessness seeping into a single word.

“I know,” Zelda murmurs into dark hair. Despite the spiderweb cracks snaking across her heart, she says, “Whatever you choose, darling. Whatever you choose, I’m right here.”

“I’ll forget you,” she says, the words breathed out so quietly, Zelda has to strain to her. “I’ll forget _us_.”

“Yes,” she admits. “But you’ll forget the bad, too.”

And for Zelda, that would have to be enough. Mary would live in a world where, as far as she knew, fire was always orange. Where banshees and goblins were bedtime stories told to naughty children, and demonic exorcisms happened only in movies. Where she didn’t feel like a stranger in her own skin. She would sleep through the whole night and grow things under a sun that never stopped shining down on her, and she wouldn’t have to concern herself with age-old demons or dark magic ever again. She would be, finally, _blessedly_, at peace, and Zelda knew that she would never forgive herself if she took that away from her.

“I can’t live like this,” she whispers, and Zelda pulls away, ducks her chin so she can look into her eyes.

“You don’t have to. Not anymore.” An assurance, spoken soft and low but sure. A kiss is placed to the crown of Mary’s head, and Zelda calls for her sister.

∆ ∆ ∆

Zelda holds Mary’s hand from beginning to end. The clock on the wall says that it takes Hilda less than 4 minutes to go into Mary and pull out the dark, but Zelda swears it’s longer.

They bind her to the bed with a spell, but her chest convulses and her jaw drops open in pain, eyes wide and pleading. She screams blood-curdling, horrifying screams, cries and begs for it to _please stop, God, just make it stop! _And Zelda can do nothing but sit, hold her hand, and pray to whomever is listening that Hilda hurries the heaven up.

What feels to her like a lifetime later, Hilda’s spirit returns to her body, and Mary stills, sweat-soaked shirt clinging to her frame and eyes fluttering closed. Zelda quickly presses two fingers against her throat, palpable relief flowing through her when she feels a pulse. She’s about to ask Hilda if it worked, but she peers down at Mary’s face, sees it utterly serene in her sleep for the very first time, and she knows that it did.

“Come, Zelds,” Hilda says, climbing from the floor and reaching for her sister’s hand. “She’ll likely sleep through the night, but we best hurry.”

They work to remove all traces of Zelda from the cottage: her toothbrush and razor, the dresses and pairs of heels that had wound up in Mary’s closet, the robe and bath salts she had brought over. Hilda bags up her makeup from the vanity while Zelda removes the ashtrays on the bedside table and the end ones in the living room. It takes some time, Zelda not having realized before that moment how much this house had become as much hers as Mary’s over the past months, but at last it’s as though Zelda was never there to begin with.

Almost.

She walks over to the mantel above the fireplace, hand coming up to trace the corner of a picture frame, and she can very nearly hear the laugh escaping from a frozen Mary captured mid-sentence. Zelda is sat next to her, smiling down into her lap with a blush firmly on her cheeks. She remembers the evening with perfect clarity: they were over at a restaurant across town, treating Sabrina after another semester successfully under her belt. Mary had been relating one of Zelda’s kitchen disasters to the young girl, retelling the ordeal with exaggerated hand movements and eyes gleaming bright. Sabrina had snapped the photo without either of them knowing, and when they were saying their goodbyes, she’d presented it to Zelda with a knowing smile. After overcoming the initial embarrassment, Zelda had kissed Sabrina’s cheek and thanked her.

Zelda forces away the lump in her throat and removes the photo from where Mary had placed it, holding it to her chest as she makes her way back into the bedroom.

Mary is still sleeping, mouth falling open and the beginnings of drool forming on the corner of her lip, and Zelda takes it all in, tries to commit the image to memory. She brushes away loose strands of hair from a peaceful face and presses a lingering kiss to her forehead. She steels herself, and before she can change her mind, she turns away, and she leaves the woman behind.

∆ ∆ ∆

Zelda fumbles with the door to the mortuary, hands shaking so violently that it’s nearly impossible to slot the key into the lock, and Hilda takes pity on her, gently covers her sister’s hands with her own and unlocks the door herself. It swings open heavy on its creaking hinges, and even with Hilda beside her, Zelda feels a suffocating emptiness staring back at her from the dark belly of the house. She hasn’t felt it since…well, since before the evening of the Winter Solstice when she’d found Mary Wardwell on the doorstep. It had been a mind-numbingly cold day, she remembers, but the woman had turned up gloveless anyway, wide blue eyes unsure and darting between Zelda and her feet. It’s funny, she thinks, how such a slight woman had been able to fill such a large part of her.

She feels a sudden, strange urge to laugh, or to cry, or maybe a bit of both, the memory nestling firmly between her ribs like an icepick, and she goes to flee before she’s forced to unburden herself in front of her sister for the umpteenth time that night. Hilda calls her name before she can clear the entryway, and Zelda turns back to her slowly.

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted to keep these,” the blonde says, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a vial. It seems to Zelda that a million tiny black serpents are swirling violently within in, battling one another for dominance. But they are not serpents, and they are not so much fighting one another as they are pulsing, vibrating with an energy so potent it turns Zelda’s stomach. Mary’s memories, the blackest, most violent threads of consciousness she’s ever seen. “I can destroy them, if you want. But I thought that maybe…”

“I’ll take them,” Zelda says, almost too quickly, reaching out to gently take the vial. It hums against her palm, and the idea of _this _being inside of Mary for so many months is nearly too much.

“There was so much _dark_,” Hilda says softly, closing her eyes and giving a slight shake of her head. “So much. But…well, do you see that?” she asks, and Zelda furrows her brow but peers into the vial, anyway.

At first, she doesn’t. All she sees is dark, the blackest of blacks, a million angry threads churning within their glass prison. And then she _does _see something, something small and swallowed back into the darkness before she has time to process exactly what it is. The longer she looks, the more of them she sees: fleeting flashes of color, blues and pinks and yellows, shining out at her before being sucked back into the violent mass around them.

“What… _what is that_?”

“Her happy memories,” comes Hilda’s answer. “You were in every one.”

∆ ∆ ∆

The remaining weeks of Spring pass, but Zelda doesn’t witness them, not from the outside of the mortuary anyway. Both Sabrina and Hilda move back home, and it’s not that Zelda doesn’t appreciate their attentiveness to her needs, because she does. It’s just that Zelda is _sad_, something that she’s usually able to mask with sarcastic jabs and an air of indifference, but it’s different this time around. This sadness seeps into her bones, traverses her body like flesh eating acid. Zelda had grown so very accustomed to her heart being protected behind thick walls years in the making; turns out, those walls had been built of glass, and Mary Wardwell was the stone to shatter them. _Zelda Spellman_, her mother’s voice again, mocking and haughty like an earworm burrowed into the nervous tissue of her brain. _Brought to her knees by a mortal woman._

She passes along a brief but effective message to her coven by way of astral projection: all of the High Priestess’ duties would henceforth be carried out by Sabrina and Hildegard Spellman. Not a word of rebellion arises from this decision. She might feel weak, but her coven does not see her as such.

She catches Hilda and Sabrina speaking in hushed voices over a running kitchen faucet one day, and she knows that one of the two has gone to see her: Sabrina, she comes to learn.

“Is she well?” Three words floating across the wooden table that separates them, but they carry the weight of thousands. _How does she look? Is she sleeping? Do you think that she’s happy?_

“Aunt Zee…” Sabrina cautions.

“Sabrina, it’s fine. Tell me.” And so Sabrina does, tells her that, as far as she can tell, Ms. Wardwell is just fine. There are no signs of sleepless night spent tossing beneath crumpled sheets. No signs that they weren’t thoroughly successful in relieving the schoolteacher of her memories.

“She’s happy,” Sabrina says. “Couldn’t stop talking about her _tomatoes_. She took me out back and showed them to me. They’re turning red.” Zelda can picture it: a smile that’s all teeth, tentative fingertips coming to gently trace the hanging fruit. Every fiber of her being longs to be there, to see it for herself.

July’s here before she knows it, and along with it comes Hilda’s birthday. She’d stepped up considerably as interim High Priestess in Zelda’s absence, and Sabrina organizes a gathering at the mortuary to celebrate her aunt. These are long days, hard days, but Zelda finds herself leaving the mortuary if only to walk the parameters of the property atop which the old house sits. She’d even attempted to plant a few seeds of her own, sending Hilda to the store one day with a list a mile-long detailing exactly what she’d need in order to dip her toes in the world of horticulture. But the seeds had withered away beneath dusty soil, and despite her unwavering care, nothing had ever been born out of them.

From the high pitch of Sabrina’s voice, it seems to Zelda that the world is but a breath away from ending, but the facts are significantly less damning: she doesn’t have time to run to the market before her classes and pick up the ingredients for Hilda’s chocolate cake. Before Zelda can put much thought into it, she hears herself volunteering to make the run herself.

“Aunt Zee, it’s fine, really. I can call Theo or Roz or-”

“Honestly, Sabrina. It’s a trip to the market. What’s the worst that can happen?”

But grief does funny things to people, flips them right-side-in until their seams are showing and they trip over their own loose threads. She slinks through the aisles of the store, hiding behind display cases of fruit and cereal, and she doesn’t pause long enough to consider just how _low _she’s sunk because wide eyes are darting every which way, equal parts dreading and hoping that she’ll catch a glimpse of raven hair ghosting over high cheekbones. She doesn’t, though, and she’s made it to the very last item on Sabrina’s endless list (a tub of Neapolitan ice-cream) when a hint of green catches her eye. And that is how Zelda Spellman finds herself bawling on aisle 6 of the Greendale supermarket over a tub of mint chocolate chip ice-cream.

The leaves turn orange and fall from their branches, brittle and breakable under the trampling of her feet, and by the time October rolls through, Zelda has more or less resumed her role as High Priestess. She sews metal braces into her spine, carries herself through the halls with her head held high, but her students can see that the fire which once burned so fiercely within her gut has dimmed.

There’s a screening of some old film at the theatre in town, and Hilda practically drags her from the sanctuary of the house with promises of popcorn and cherry Coke. It used to be one of Zelda’s favorite films, and despite the ever-present weight sitting low in her belly, she finds herself laughing along with the rest of the mortals. It’s nice, good in a way she’d forgotten things could be, and she doesn’t think to be wary when she steps back out into the cooling night air. She’s listening to Hilda chatter about something that Claudette Colbert had said when she’s assaulted by a small thing with wide brown eyes and a wagging tail.

“Tramp! Where in heaven’s name…” A voice rings out from the other side of the street, and Zelda freezes, the back of her neck beginning to burn. Her head snaps up, and she sees her, hurtling across the street and nearly getting plowed down by a passing car, but she doesn’t slow. And then the woman is before her, chest heaving from the exertion and reaching down to take the dog by his collar, brushing away fallen hair from her face and gazing up at Zelda. She looks _good_, no dark circles under her eyes, and her hands do not tremble as they keep hold of a very excited Tramp. Mary smiles at her, and all of the blood in Zelda’s face drains.

“Ms. Spellman! I am _so _sorry, he’s usually so well-behaved but…”

Zelda's trembling, swallows thickly as fear pools in her stomach, and she doesn’t hear the end of the woman’s sentence because she turns swiftly on her heel and all but runs down the sidewalk, tugging at her sister’s hand as she goes and squeezing tightly. Hilda doesn’t complain, only keeps hold on Zelda’s hand just as firmly and magics them back into the mortuary once they’ve turned the corner. Zelda cries for the first time in 14 days.

∆ ∆ ∆

After the incident, Zelda splits her time between the Academy and the mortuary, and she doesn’t venture into town again. Sabrina’s birthday passes, and the first snow touches the ground in early November. Her family is pulled back into the obligations of their own lives, and just like that, Zelda finds herself cold and alone, as though the last year hadn’t existed at all.

She still hasn’t mastered the art of cooking, preferring whiskey to actual sustenance these days anyway, but when the fancy strikes, she orders out. In Zelda’s mind, if there’s one compliment to be paid to the increasingly modernized world, it’s that being able to have a meal delivered to one’s front door with a single phone call is a hell-send. The growl in her stomach is accompanied by the doorbell sounding, and Zelda stands to greet the delivery boy.

But there is no delivery boy, and she nearly slams the door in the woman’s flushed face when she catches sight of her. Mary Wardwell, on her doorstep once again. Her car is parked in the drive this time, tracks etched into the snow from the way she came, but her hands remain gloveless. Zelda once had plans, back in the spring: come wintertime, she would take Mary shopping and buy her a pair of gloves, would buy her a whole drawerful of them. That was back when she believed they had time.

“Ms. Spellman! Hello,” she greets, and damn it all to hell, but the memories won’t stop coming. The image before her hits much too close to home, reminds her of the very first evening. The details are nearly identical: wind-swept hair tugged loosely into a bun, chapped lips upturned into the hint of a smile, moon-wide eyes. Gloveless hands. Only this time, Zelda knows how it feels to comb through that hair with reverent fingertips, knows how deliciously those lips mold against her own. She’s lost herself within the depths of those blue eyes countless times before. It’s a full-frontal assault, and she braces herself against the dark wood of the doorframe.

“What do you want?” she asks, forcing as much ice as she can muster into the words. It has no effect on the woman before her.

“I was hoping I might have a moment of your time,” the woman says.

“I don’t think that-”

“_Please_, Ms. Spellman. It won’t take long.” And Zelda doesn’t know if it’s because the desperation that leaks into the words sounds so familiar, reminds her of a time long-passed when the same desperation colored every word out of the woman’s mouth, or if it’s because she’s simply weak, but she flings the door wide, lets the woman and the chill of a November evening into her home.

She motions for Mary to sit, but she does not follow suit, opting to lean against the island. She grips the surface for support, knuckles showing white under the strain.

“How is Sabrina these days? It’s been some time since she’s stopped by my cottage, and I-”

“_Ms. Wardwell_,” Zelda grits out. “If you would be so kind as to get to the point of your visit.”

“Right,” the woman breathes out with a shaky laugh. Her hands are shaking, too, fingers fidgeting with the hem of her blouse. “Lately, well for the last month or so, I’m not _exactly _ sure for how long, but…”

“Are you having nightmares?” Zelda hears herself ask, and when wide eyes snap up to meet hers, she could kick herself.

“No…” the woman says slowly, an inquisitive tilt of a head angled toward Zelda. “Dreams, yes. Odd ones, sure, but I don’t know if I’d call them nightmares.”

“I see,” Zelda drawls after lighting a cigarette, and she blows the smoke out with the words. “And, what? Are you under the impression that I conduct dream interpretations as a side business?”

“No,” she laughs nervously.

“Then I fail to see how-”

“You’re in them,” she says quickly, and Zelda’s stomach drops. “At least, I think it’s you. They’re not terribly clear, but… it’s you. I know it’s you.”

“I see,” Zelda says again, if only to buy precious time, because _how _in Lilith’s name is she supposed to respond to that? It shouldn’t even be possible. “That is…interesting.”

"It is,” comes an embarrassed response.

“I’m flattered, truly,” she says, working to keep her voice steady under the woman’s heavy gaze. “But I must admit, Ms. Wardwell, if you’ve come here with anything more than the intentions of confessing your more sapphic tendencies, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

Mary _blushes _at that, the color rising swiftly to the curve of her cheeks. She pauses, gaze locked on her twiddling thumbs. She appears to be considering something, turning it over in her mind, and then she comes to a decision.

“It’s not just that,” she says. “I _know _you.” When she hears the beginnings of a scoff leave Zelda’s throat, she rushes to continue. “And I don’t mean know you as in you being Sabrina’s aunt, know you. I mean…I mean that I _know _you. Things about you that…” She takes a breath then, lifting hesitant but adamant eyes to connect with Zelda’s own. “Things about you that I _shouldn’t _know.”

A silence settles between them. It pulses with things unsaid, with nervous energy. Zelda weighs her options, decides to stick with the tried and true.

“Ms. Wardwell, again, I am _flattered_, but-”

“You prefer summer to other seasons. You like old movies, especially the ones with Katherine Hepburn, but you’ll watch just about any of them.” This freezes Zelda to the spot, but her knees weaken. Nothing remains of her cigarette save for an ashy stub, so she puts it out and lights another. Mary does not falter. “Your favorite color is blue because you grew up on the seaside, and when you were little, you wanted to be a ballet dancer, but your mother wouldn’t let you take classes.” Zelda sinks into a chair opposite of Mary, puffing on her cigarette like it’s the last that will ever grace her lips, and she’s helpless against the other woman’s words, helpless to put a stop to them like she knows she should. “You’re hopeless in the kitchen, you sing in the shower and you can’t fall asleep unless _someone_,” a pause here, a quick glance to Zelda’s lips, and she knows that by _someone_, she means herself, “unless _someone _is touching you. You say you’re not ticklish, but you are, especially on your sides. You’ll eat red twizzlers like they’re going out of style if given the chance, and you _hate _the smell of gasoline. You love the smell of lavender, though, and I know…” Despite her frantic rambling, Mary looks more certain than Zelda’s ever seen her, and when she takes a breath, stops only for a moment to stare at the witch, Zelda is afraid. “And I know that, even though I can’t bake a cake for the life of me, you love me anyway.”

And that does it, brings tears rushing to Zelda’s eyes so quickly that she doesn’t have time to shield her face, to mask her emotions from the woman sitting across from her. This seems to solidify everything for Mary.

“I know all of these things, Zelda. What I don’t know is _why_, or _how_, I know them,” she says desperately. And then, “I need you to tell me why.”

In truth, Zelda doesn’t know how Mary knows these things; it shouldn’t even be possible. But it is, and everything she said was true, down to the very last bit. She brings a hand to press against her temple, and it takes her only a moment to formulate a response.

“Get out,” she whispers, low and gravelly but with clear intent.

“Zelda, I-”

“Get _out_!” And she’s yelled it, loud and raw, rising so swiftly from her place at the table that the chair skitters backward, her voice breaking on the latter word and a tear dripping down her cheek. Mary doesn’t budge.

“No.” Sweet, soft, _stubborn _Mary Wardwell. Zelda once admired this quality in her, how when the woman got an idea in her pretty head, she would gnaw at it until it was nothing more than a skeletal frame. At present, it’s proving rather frustrating.

“Ms. Wardwell,” Zelda begins, forcing enough malice into the words to bring a lesser woman to her knees. “If you do not leave this house immediately, you will not like what comes next.”

A roll of blue eyes heavenward, and then the woman is rising. “Fine. It’s obvious that you’re afraid, though I haven’t the slightest idea why.” Zelda can’t muster up enough indignation to respond to that. “But I’ll be back, Zelda Spellman. I know where you live, after all. I know lots of things about you.”

∆ ∆ ∆

Hilda receives a frantic call and is within Spellman walls in an instant.

“I don’t _know_, Zelds,” she breathes out, her own frustration doing nothing to calm her sister’s nerves. “I’ve never had it happen before. She _shouldn’t _be able to remember _anything _from the months I removed.”

“Well, she _does_,” comes Zelda’s response, all trembling fingers as she reaches for another cigarette, only to find that she’s burned through the entire pack. “_Fuck_.”

“It’s okay, we’ll work something out,” Hilda tries, bless her, but it’s not enough.

“_How_, Hilda? You took everything from those months, yes?” A small nod confirms this. “What else is there to do?”

“I don’t know,” Hilda admits, and then, “But I think I might know someone who does.”

And with that, she takes Zelda’s hand into her own and teleports them away. When the delivery boy does eventually turn up at the Spellman house, no one is home to answer the door.

∆ ∆ ∆

That _someone _turns out to be an old professor of Hilda’s, someone whom Zelda’d always thought to be on the wrong side of eccentric. He was old as grave dirt back when they were at the Academy, and Zelda finds it improbable that he’s still kicking about in those dirty loafers of his, but he is. He’s aged considerably, reminds Zelda of that wizard from those movies with the ring that Ambrose adores, but his signature peculiarities haven’t fallen to the wayside. If anything, Zelda thinks that he’s even crazier than the last time she’d seen him, which says a great deal.

“Hilda Spellman!” he exclaims when he sees them, ushering them into his musty home. Zelda wrinkles her nose but keeps her mouth shut. “My shining pupil,” he says, bringing her hands to his lips and pressing a prickly kiss to them. Hilda beams up at him, and Zelda fights against the urge to roll her eyes. “And Zelda Spellman,” he continues, turning to her, and Zelda forces a smile onto her lips, though it probably comes off more as a grimace. “I’ve heard you’ve had quite the time as of late. First female High Priestess.”

“Yes,” Zelda says. “But that isn’t why we’re here.”

“_Zelda_! Don’t be rude,” Hilda breathes out, eyeing her sister with an annoyed glance. The old man only chuckles, leads them into a back room where books are stacked high to the ceiling.

  
“It’s quite alright, my dear,” he says, motioning for them to sit down, which Zelda does with a considerable amount of distaste. A cloud of dust rises as they drop onto the cushions of an ancient couch. “What can I help you with?”

Zelda allows Hilda to fill the warlock in, adding in details that her sister misses and watching the man as he raises his eyebrows and hums deep in his throat. When it’s all been said, he folds his hands in his lap, his brows furrowed.

“This woman,” he begins, lifting his face to stare at Zelda. “_Mary_. You two were close?”

“Yes,” Zelda says lowly.

“And you love her, yes?” Zelda bristles at this, never one for the sharing of emotions, especially with a crotchety old man whom she’s pretty sure hasn’t the slightest clue as to which century they’re currently living in if his trousers are anything to go by, but she nods her head anyway.

“And she loves you?”

“_Loved_, yes, but I fail to see how this is of any import whatsoever,” she bites out, ignoring the sharp glare from her sister. And then, oh and _then_, the man _laughs_, a raucous holler of a thing, and Zelda’s resounding glare could burn him to embers.

“My dear,” he says when he’s composed himself, shaking his head softly and fixing Zelda with a saddened gaze. “It is the _most _important. You could strip out every thread of consciousness that someone possesses, leave them until they’re a mere shell of flesh and bone, but if it concerns a matter of the heart, it would be futile.”

“_A matter of the heart_?” Zelda laughs airily. “What is this, a Disney movie?”

“It is fact, my dear,” he says, nonplussed by her haughtiness. “You said it yourself. It should be impossible for the woman to know the things she does, and yet she knows them. She should not know you for the woman she fell in love with, but she does. And she will until her heart ceases beating in her chest.” When Zelda says nothing, only gazes at him with slightly glassy eyes, he reaches over and collects a pack of cigarettes from the end table, offering one to her. If she were in any other state of mind, she would have promptly refused it (Lilith knows what grime it’s acquired by merely _sitting _on that table), but she accepts with a shaky hand.

“So what can we do?” she asks eventually.

“Well, the way I see it, you have two options. One, you do nothing. You allow her to sit with these remembrances until she eventually convinces herself that she’s gone mad. Or two, you give her the memories back.” He turns to Hilda. “You kept them, I presume?”

“I have them, yes,” Zelda answers instead. “But we took them from her for good reason. She asked us to; they were _hurting _her.”

“I’m afraid nothing can be done about that,” he admits. “The decision is yours, Zelda. But tread carefully, my dear. These are extremely delicate proceedings.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bad news? I had to split the last chapter into two because it was getting too long.  
The good news? The last bit is already written, and if I remember, I'll post it later this evening or tomorrow.
> 
> All kudos/comments are appreciated!


	4. (as if they could ever forget)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There's a piece of me that's just not there, and it's shaped an awful lot like you."

When they return, the moon is hanging high overhead and Zelda sends Hilda away to Doctor Cee’s, assuring her that she’ll call if she needs her, and settles in for a night of contemplation. What follows is significantly less productive than she’d hoped it would be, and she accomplishes little other than getting herself properly plastered. The idea of making this _decision_ drives her to the drink, and drink she does, until she’s stumbling to the kitchen for a glass of water and Tylenol just past 2 in the morning. When she sinks down onto the couch, pulling a throw over her body and sinking into soft cushions, she does so with the image of soft skin and dark hair swimming through her cloudy mind. She dreams of Mary.

∆ ∆ ∆

Zelda had never been one to voice things in such a manner as to adhere to society’s propriety standards, and she feels that she’s quite justified when she wakes up in the morning and declares it to be a total _bitch _of a morning. She’d forgotten to draw the curtains the night before, and the sun shining through the window earns itself quite a few expletives when it pulls her into consciousness. Her head is pounding and her tongue feels like a stone sitting in her mouth and her back aches from the couch, so yeah, she’s going to call the morning whatever the heaven she feels like calling it, while popping Tylenol by the handful and brewing a kettle of tea, a special blend that Hilda had concocted specifically for this purpose.

Tea drunk and medicine kicking in nicely, she’s feeling considerably more like herself and less like the ghost of frat party’s past when 9am rolls around. She dresses for the day, wipes away the remnants of yesterday’s mascara from beneath her eyes, and declares it good enough. The remainder of the morning, she decides as she settles down at the kitchen table, will make up for the distinct lack of progress last night.

The sound of the front door opening has her bolting out of her seat, magic already coating the tips of her fingers as she awaits whomever deemed it perfectly appropriate to enter her home without so much as knocking. Her rigid stance relaxes considerably when she catches sight of the woman walking into the kitchen.

“_Mary_?” she questions, and the woman stops short before her, hand coming up to cover her mouth and eyes widening.

“Oh,” she says, eyeing the witch in front of her with an embarrassed expression contorting her features. “God, I didn’t even knock, did I? I’m so sorry; I honestly don’t know what’s gotten into me.” Zelda knows, though, why the woman didn’t think twice before letting herself through the entryway, which is why she merely motions for her to seat herself at the table. Mary had spent months coming and going between her own cottage and the mortuary, and it’s clear that it’d become muscle memory.

“It’s fine,” she says, catching the hint of relief that washes over the woman’s features. “I was expecting you, anyhow.”

“Oh?” she asks coyly, watching the witch set fire to a cigarette’s tip. The smoke curls and twists, dissipates into the air. “Are you going to answer my questions?”

“Today? No,” she replies, resisting the urge to smile fondly at the woman’s subsequent eyeroll. “I need time to consider a few things, first.”

It’s a battle of wills then, Mary doing her best to pin Zelda with a glare and Zelda returning the look with raised eyebrows, smoking serenely and refusing to back down. A moment passes, and then Mary huffs a bit, leaning back into the chair and folding her arms, and if Zelda didn’t find her so damned adorable, she would make a snide remark about her resemblance to a preteen Sabrina.

“Fine,” she says. “I can wait.” And wait she does, right from her place at Zelda’s kitchen table. Zelda can’t find it within herself to demand that she leave, so with a heavy sigh, she unfurls a newspaper and does her best to concentrate on the words. The woman digs into the bag she’d brought along with her and spreads what Zelda assumes to be lesson plans across the table, and then they’re enveloped in silence. Despite the newspaper lifted high in hopes of creating a barrier between them, Zelda can see that Mary’s glasses are sitting on the bridge of her nose as her eyes pour over the pages, pen scribbling lazily and teeth worrying with a glistening bottom lip. And _that_ is another thing entirely. She’s smeared the lips with a pink-tinged gloss, and her lashes are ebony-coated, sweeping out along sharp cheekbones. Her hair falls loosely over her shoulders, and even from across the table, Zelda can smell her: an erotically sweet perfume wafting across the table and quickly unraveling her decorum. When the woman rolls her neck on her shoulders, exposing a long expanse of creamy skin, a sigh escapes soft lips, and Zelda visibly shutters.

“Something the matter?” Wide blue eyes are flicking up to catch cloudy green, and there’s a coy smile tugging on the corners of her lips. Zelda clears her throat, mutters something about a winter draft, and rises to put another kettle to boil. She’s working to calm the pulse jumping in her throat when the woman speaks again. “This is _dreadfully_boring, Zelda.” And she hadn’t even heard the brunette rise from the table, but she must have because there’s suddenly a warm body at her back, fingertips ghosting over her sides and hot breath against her ear. “Any suggestions on how we might pass the time?”

“Mary…” It’s breathed out half-warning, half-plea, and Zelda can’t stop herself from tilting her head when the woman brushes away copper hair and drops a wet kiss to the juncture of her neck. Zelda’s body sags against the brunette, eyes fluttering shut, and it’s simultaneously too much and not enough, her senses flooded with all things syrupy sweet and sultry.

“No ideas? Well,” she drawls, teeth coming to nip sharply at the lobe of an ear and eliciting a soft groan from Zelda. “I suppose I could think of _something_.” There’s a hand snaking around her to shut off the stovetop, and then she’s being turned in Mary’s arms until they’re pressed flush against one another. Zelda sees her pupils blown wide, the rising color on her cheeks that Zelda suspects isn’t makeup, and a wicked grin gracing her lips. She sees is all, lets it settle in the pit of her stomach and shoot through her body like a current. She sees it all just before those soft lips are pressing against her own, and then she sees nothing at all, just feels.

She feels the woman surge up into her, a hand pressed against the small of her back and drawing her endlessly closer. She feels fingertips running through her hair, stroking her cheek, tracing the curvature of her spine over her dress. She feels _Mary_, just Mary, and it takes Zelda a moment to take it all in, to realize that she should be doing _something_ rather than standing idly.

_Push her away_, insists her head.

_Don’t you dare,_ counters her heart, and according to Hilda’s eccentric friend, when it comes to matters of the heart, everything else is futile anyway. So she listens, and Mary smiles into the mouth of the witch coming to life in her arms. It’s desperate, needy and wet and sloppy, full of sharp teeth and sharper nails, and it’s everything that Zelda had been craving.

But when Mary’s hands begin to tug at the bottom of her dress, lifting it so she can grip bare hips and ghost fingertips along the soft flesh of her thighs, her head screams at her so loudly that she’s forced to sever their lips.

“Wait,” she breathes out, but Mary’s quick to silence her, pressing her more insistently into the edge of the countertop, but it isn’t the thought of fresh bruises that has her resisting. “Mary, we _shouldn’t_. I-”

“I don’t care,” comes a breathy response, and Zelda is about to argue, to _insist_ that this couldn’t possibly be conducive to bringing about a solution they both so desperately need, but then Mary is dropping to her knees and bunching her dress around her waist, pulling down her underwear with a quick tug, and Zelda Spellman loses the ability to form thought altogether, much less produce intelligible words. Her head snaps back violently when a warm mouth connects with swollen flesh, a guttural sound ripped from her throat. And if Zelda knows one thing, hands coming down to tangle in dark curls and eyes rolling to the back of her head, it’s that Mary may have forgotten a great deal, but she certainly forgotten this.

∆ ∆ ∆

“Well, we’ve definitely done _that _before.” It comes out as a chuckle, borderline breathless and let out between swollen lips. Mary’s tracing aimless patterns with the tips of her fingers, letting them glide over a bare back, up smooth sides, follows with her eyes the goosebumps surfacing under the ministrations, and Zelda can’t stop the serene smile from sliding onto her face.

“Yes,” she breathes out lowly, and she feels the hand that had found its way around to her stomach still.

“So it’s true then,” she says. “The things I said about you yesterday.”

Zelda sighs, rolling from her side onto her back. She knows it isn’t fair to string the woman along; she needs to give her an answer of some sort. She also knows that there isn’t a perfect solution, but that doesn’t stop her from longing for the one that would inflict the least damage, that would spare this woman the most pain. For all her pondering, she’s fallen short.

“Yes,” she repeats. The woman beside her considers this, hand resuming its leisurely journey along the passages of her body.

“Everything?” And there’s something in the way she says it that has Zelda turning back onto her side, has her noting the odd expression on the woman’s face. Her own face must reflect her confusion, for Mary continues, “I mean…even the part about you loving me?”

It comes out soft, barely a whisper, and Zelda’s heart nearly breaks into two when she sees her face oscillating between wistful and anxious, eyes downcast as if bracing herself for the worst while simultaneously not able to ward off the bit of hope that maybe, by some act of divine intervention, Zelda Spellman does love her. Any hesitation she had felt is obliterated in that instant.

  
“My darling,” she says, moisture pooling in her eyes. She reaches a hand out to tilt Mary’s chin upwards so she’s forced to meet her gaze. “I love you more than you could know.”

Mary’s body visibly relaxes, anxiety falling from her face and immediately replaced with relief. Zelda draws her in then, arms coming to encircle her small frame and hold her close, and Mary holds her back just as firmly, burying her face into the witch’s neck.

“Then why, Zelda?” she breathes out, pulling back slightly. “_Why _won’t you just tell me?”

“Because it’s a very complicated situation, Mary. It’s-”

“No, do you know what’s complicated?” she cuts her off, and the slight hysteria in her voice has Zelda’s eyes widening. “Not being able to sleep on the right side of the bed anymore because you know someone else is supposed to be there. Making scrambled eggs with cheese on top even though you don’t really like cheese. Seeing your face that night on the street and feeling _warm _for the first time in…God, I can’t even remember how long it’s been since I felt genuine warmth, but not knowing why.” A tear makes a slow descent down her face, but she hastily swipes at it until it’s smeared across her cheek. “I’m not _whole_. There’s a piece of me that’s just not there, and it’s shaped an awful lot like you. _That’s _complicated, Zelda! No, it’s worse than that. It’s fucking miserable, and you say that you love me, but you know why I’m like this, what happened to me, and you won’t even tell me!” The words are deafeningly loud, bouncing off the bedroom walls and falling on Zelda’s ears with an anguished desperation about them. She’s crying in earnest now, trembling with anger, and Zelda pulls her closer, grounds her with steady arms. “Tell me, Zelda. _Please, just tell me!_”

“Okay, okay,” she breathes into her neck, rocking back and forth and rubbing soothing circles on her back. “I’ll tell you.”

“You will?” It’s choked out pitifully between sniffles, Mary’s head pulling back so she can peer into Zelda’s face.

“Yes,” Zelda says softly. “I will. Just…just give me a day. Go home and come back tomorrow, and I’ll tell you.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

∆ ∆ ∆

Mary is on the doorstep before lunchtime the next day, remembering to knock this time but shifting on the balls of her feet, impatient, nervous energy radiating off of her and transmitting to Zelda when she opens the door and lets her inside. She sits herself at the kitchen table without prompting, looking to the witch expectantly. And for all of Zelda’s prepping, despite the countless times she’d run through this exact scenario in her head, she struggles for words.

“I promised you answers,” she says finally, and Mary nods her head. “And I will give them to you. But first, I need to warn you.”

“Zelda-”

“Just…just listen,” she says, and Mary sighs but does what she’s bid, settles into the chair as much as her fidgeting frame will allow for. Zelda takes a deep breath, and then, “Something happened to you, Mary. Something that never should have happened to you, something… something _horrible_. Vile.” She waits for a reaction, but all she’s given is unwavering blue eyes staring back at her. “You came here on Solstice Day last year, and you stayed through the night. I heard you screaming even from my bedroom.” If Zelda closes her eyes, she can still picture the sight she was met with that night she opened the door to the guest room, can still see how the sheets twisted around Mary’s body as she convulsed atop the bed. “You were plagued with nightmares. That’s how we became close. I comforted you through them.”

“How?” The question stops Zelda short, and it takes her a moment to formulate a response.

“I held you, mostly, until you calmed down. But sometimes…sometimes they were too bad. They had such a hold on you, and…”

“And?”

“That’s the other thing,” she says, hesitating for only a moment. “I gave you a sleeping potion.”

“A sleeping _potion_?”

“Yes,” she confirms, gathering her nerves before adding with a measure of hesitance, “I’m a witch, Mary.”

Mary laughs at that, an odd sound that lasts only a moment before it meets its end. Then her brows are knitting together, her head tilting slightly to the side.

“You are,” she says with a sense of finality, as though she already knew it, was just waiting to be reminded of it. “That makes sense, I suppose.” A look to Zelda’s vaguely bewildered face has her continuing. “That’s why I can’t remember anything from that time. You gave me a potion to make me forget.”

“Not exactly,” she replies. “I did take your memories, yes. But you _asked _me to, Mary. You begged. It was just…it was too painful for you to remember what you’d gone through, to live with that hanging over you.”

She’s quiet for a moment, takes shallow breaths and seems to be contemplating something. Then, “Tell me.”

“Mary, I really don’t-”

“You _promised_, Zelda,” she counters, reaching across the table to take Zelda’s hand into her own. Her voice is firm when she adds, “Tell me. I can take it.” There’s a pause, and then Zelda sighs deeply.

“Do you know who Lilith is?”

“The name sounds familiar, but…”

“She’s a demon. A witch, the very first one in existence. She killed you, Mary, and then she brought you back.” Blue eyes widen, breath hitching in the woman’s throat, but Zelda pushes through. “But not before using your body. I don’t know everything she did while she had it, but they…they were horrid things, Mary. And your nightmares… it all came back to you while you slept, nearly every night. I held you through them, did all I could to make it hurt less, but it was _bad_. So bad that you had to forget.”

The words hang in the air like a thick fog, and Zelda holds her breath while she waits for Mary to speak.

“But if you took the memories, how do I remember so much about you?”

“_Apparently_, you remember because you loved me. Because your heart was involved.”

“I see,” she says slowly. She gives a slight shake of her head, a humorless laugh of disbelief passing through her lips. And then, “I think… I think I need a drink.”

∆ ∆ ∆

They’re sat in the parlor, a tumbler of whiskey resting in Mary’s hands and her head pillowed on Zelda’s lap while the witch’s fingers run through her hair. Zelda’s chosen to abstain tonight, recognizing the need to maintain a clear mind, but she indulges Mary, watches as she takes tentative sips of the amber liquid. They don’t speak much, only when Mary’s silent monologue has her asking Zelda a question in order to fill in the blanks of her mind, and Zelda is trying to decide whether she made the right decision by being honest with the brunette when Mary speaks.

“I just can’t believe I would ever choose to forget you,” she says softly, turning her face into Zelda’s stomach so she can nuzzle against it softly.

“You didn’t want to,” Zelda assures her. “But it was too much for you. It would have been too much for _anyone_.”

Mary nods as if she understands. “And you…you just took them? I mean, even though you knew I would forget you, too?”

“Of course I did,” Zelda says easily. When she sees the hurt flash across Mary’s face, she’s quick to add, “I was heartbroken, cried nearly every time I saw something that reminded me of you. But when it comes to choosing between my own wants and your peace of mind…well, there’s no question.” She runs a gentle thumb across the woman’s browbone, smiles down at her softly. “I choose you.”

Tears pool in bright blue eyes, and then Mary’s sitting up so she can lightly press her lips against Zelda’s. When she pulls back, there’s an endless love shining from her eyes. She says nothing, returning her head to rest on Zelda’s thighs, and a long period passes where nothing is said at all. Zelda thinks that the woman has fallen asleep and is attempting to work out how she can best extract herself from the couch without waking her when Mary mumbles something into Zelda’s stomach.

“What was that?” Zelda asks, and Mary turns her face so she’s staring up at the witch, so that her next words are spoken clearly.

“Can you give them back to me?”

Zelda freezes, swallows deeply and blinks down at the woman. She had been afraid of this. Absolutely terrified.

“Mary…”

“Please, Zelda.”

“But _why_?” she asks, watching as the woman sits up and turns so she can face the witch. “Why would you want those memories back?”  
  


“Because there were good ones too, I know it,” she says, pulling Zelda’s hands into her lap and cradling them with her own. “Because I love you, and because I can’t bear the thought of being without you.”

“You don’t have to, though, Mary. I’m here anyway, as long as you want me.”

“It’s not _right_, though. It doesn’t feel right. It feels like there’s a piece missing, because there is. And I’m not _me_ without that piece, however bad it may be.” She sucks in a quick breath, leaning in so they’re practically breathing the same air. A hand comes up to cup Zelda’s cheek, blue eyes boring into green. “I need you to make me remember.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Maybe,” she admits. “But I’m asking anyway.”

∆ ∆ ∆

It takes another three hours for Mary to convince Zelda, and even then, she’s not entirely convinced. But the woman is _insistent_, stubborn in that unique way only Mary can be, and Zelda isn’t left with much of a choice in the end. She calls Hilda, who attempts to dissuade Mary almost as fiercely as Zelda had when she arrives at the house, all to no avail. The woman’s resolve is unshakeable, and Hilda turns to her sister with a sigh.

“Do you have them?” she asks, and Zelda nods her head almost imperceptibly, mind flashing to the vial she’d locked away next to a tress of Sabrina’s hair (from her very first haircut, self-administered as it were, baby-fine and so blonde it’s nearly white) and a framed photo of her brother after his dark baptism. She casts a glance at Mary, sees that her determination in the matter has yet to dissipate, and turns to retrieve it.

Mary eyes the vial with wide eyes when Zelda returns with it, reaching out for it with uncertain hands. The threads are as black as Zelda remembers them, just as violent in their perpetual shaking. Mary lifts the bottle until it’s level with her head, blinks a few times, and Zelda sees the fear flashing within her eyes. A few moments pass and the fear is replaced with certitude, and she hands the bottle over to Hilda.

“Are you sure about this, love?” Hilda asks a final time. “You wanted them out for a reason.”

“I’m sure,” she says with a nod. “How do we do this?”

“Well,” Hilda begins, turning and heading toward the kitchen. “Luckily, putting them back in is a lot easier than taking them out.” She removes a pot from a cabinet, sets some water to boil. “We just have to dilute the little buggers, and then you’ll be able to drink them.”

The process takes a remarkably short amount of time considering how detrimental it could end up being, and before Zelda knows it, Hilda’s handing her a glass of murky grey sludge. It bubbles and swirls inside the glass, and Zelda looks to Mary uncertainly. The brunette takes a breath, and then she’s holding her hand out.

“You saw them, Mary,” Zelda tries one last time, keeping the glass firmly within her own hand. “You saw how dark they were, how angry. Are you _sure _you want them?”

“Zelda,” she says, closing the distance between them and bringing her hands up to cup the witch’s face. “I have to do this. I’ll be fine, I promise.”

Zelda doesn’t know if she believes it, still thinks that Mary doesn’t know what she’s asking for, but she closes her eyes and allows the brunette to take the glass anyway. She leads them to the parlor, waits for Mary to sink into the cushions before she follows suit. The woman takes one of Zelda’s hands into her own, and with one final glance in her direction, she’s bringing the glass to her mouth. Zelda watches as the substance disappears behind chapped lips, and she holds her breath.

At first, nothing happens. Mary sets the glass to the side, wrinkles her face slightly at the taste, and Zelda’s about to ask her if she feels any differently when her eyes screw shut. She begins to tremble, the grip on Zelda’s hand turning deathly, and her mouth falls open in anguish. Zelda closes the distance in record time.

“Mary? Mary, look at me!” she cries, cupping her cheek and looking to Hilda desperately. Her sister looks as helpless as Zelda feels. It feels like an eternity passes before Mary’s eyes are opening, glassy and filled with such agony that Zelda’s heart nearly stops beating in her chest. “Oh Satan, Mary, I’m sorry. _I’m so sorry_.”

“_Zelda_?” And then those eyes are turning upon hers, and the woman lets out a cry, relief flooding her features as she flings herself toward the witch. “I remember_. _God, Zelda, _ I remember_,” she sobs into her neck, and Zelda doesn’t know what to think, whether to be terrified or relieved, only knows to hold her close.

“Mary,” she says, pushing her back so she can examine the woman’s face. “Are you alright? Are you hurting?”

“No,” she manages. And then, “Well yes, but…_God_, Zelda, I was wrong, so horribly wrong. I shouldn’t have- I should have _known-_”

“It’s alright, just breathe,” Zelda says softly, running a soothing hand up and down her back, waits until the other woman’s breathing calms, until her shoulders cease shaking so violently. “Now tell me, are you _really _alright?”

“_Yes_.” Mary smiles at her then, all teeth and unconcealed emotion. “I missed you, so _so_ much.”

“But the memories,” Zelda begins, swallowing thickly as she searches the woman’s eyes. “The ones from Lilith. You don’t... do you-”

“They’re there,” Mary says, face dimming slightly. “But I’m okay. I mean, I will be.” She gazes fondly at the witch, squeezes her hands. “I was wrong, Zelda. Forgetting the bad… it wasn’t worth forgetting the good.” She leans in with no hesitation, pressing wet lips against Zelda’s own. When she pulls back, she’s smiling. “Not when the good was you.”

It’s Zelda’s turn to let out a cry, one of utter disbelief and infinite relief, and she shifts forward to kiss the woman again, smiling into her lips and tasting the salt from her tears. It’ll take some time, she thinks, to allow for things to settle, for her to accept that maybe, just _maybe,_it’ll be okay. That Mary won’t decide that she’d made a horrible mistake and grow to hate Zelda for allowing her to take back the memories, to remember the bad. But, she decides as Mary pulls back, wiping moisture away from under Zelda’s eyes and breathing out a soft laugh, she’ll do her best to look forward, to focus on the good, as long as Mary is beside her.

∆ ∆ ∆

Mary moves into the Spellman house the next day, but they agree to keep the cottage if only for sentimentality’s sake. She has so many clothes, dresses and blouses and cardigans, that Zelda is forced to relocate a few of her own outfits to the guest closet, but she doesn’t mind, not in the slightest. A small celebration is thrown that evening, Sabrina insisting upon it, and Mary bears the brunt of the attention like the woman she is, welcoming countless hugs from Sabrina’s friends and Doctor Cee and smiling fondly at Zelda as she does.

The nightmares return, but they aren’t so frequent, nor so vicious as they’d been before. Still, Zelda cringes every time she sees the torment swimming in blue eyes, every time she holds her through the night and waits for the shaking to subside, though it does so much more quickly these days.

Zelda often asks Mary if she regrets it, if she’d choose differently now that she remembers everything. Her response is the same each time, as is the resounding kiss that never fails to follow. _No_, she’ll say. _I won’t ever regret choosing you, Zelda._

She doesn’t know if she’ll ever grow to believe it without reservations, but Mary is so sincere, so honest and true in all things. And when Zelda falls asleep at night, her lover’s body curled up beside her, soft and warm and human, Zelda forgets to worry. She only remembers to love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it, folks! I hope you all enjoyed this ride as much as I did, and I'm so thankful for all of the support for my little story (which was originally supposed to be a one-off, imagine that).
> 
> If the fancy strikes, you guys can find me on tumblr (caosincorrectquotes). I promise that my posts there aren't nearly so angsty as this fic was.
> 
> Until next time!


	5. a soft epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> « un été sans fin se cachait dans ses mains  
et là, sur ma peau, il faisait beau »

It’s all going horribly, _dreadfully_ wrong. Despite the weathermen predicting a beautiful, sunny day, thick grey clouds had begun overtaking the sky and releasing fat raindrops before Zelda had even extracted herself from bed. Thunder rolled and white lighting crackled across the sky, and Zelda cried into her cheerios. It had been easy enough to remedy, Sabrina turning the storm away with very little exertion on her part, but the day had only digressed from there. She’d run out of her favorite body scrub that she’d acquired in Paris, and her blow dryer had chosen that day, of all _possible _days, to meet its untimely death, and Zelda had subsequently set it ablaze in red-hot rage. Little tendrils of hair kept snaking into her eyes despite the million and 3 bobby pins Hilda had affixed to her head, and she damned the shade of lipstick to the pits of hell before she’d even finished applying it. And now, standing before a floor-length mirror and staring at her reflection, it feels as though Hilda’s familiars are crawling up her spine. The fabric of her dress scratches against her stomach and her feet are already cramping in the heels she’d forgotten to break in, and to top it all off, she can’t even smoke a damn cigarette for fear of smudging the Satan-forsaken lipstick.

“Zelds?” her sister’s voice rings out from the behind her, and she turns with a huff. Hilda beams at her with a grin that turns Zelda’s stomach. “About ready, love?”

_No_, no she absolutely is _not_ ready, but she says nothing of the sort. Instead, she gives a curt nod and places her hand in her sister’s outstretched one, wills the tremor in it to cease and forces away the fear rising swiftly in her throat, and she allows Hilda to lead her out of the room.

∆ ∆ ∆

_One Month Earlier_

Something is off with Mary, and it drives worry into Zelda’s bones like a mallet driving nails into planks, a foreign body forced uncomfortably into wood and creating a disruption where once there was none. It’s been 4 months since they’d begun building the foundations for something resembling normalcy (as close to normalcy as they’re able under the circumstances, Zelda reasons), and things have been blessedly unremarkable. They’d gravitated toward routine, adjusted their days so that they may coexist next to one another, and Zelda has never known such profound contentment.

The transition from peaceful to off-centered is subtle, but Zelda is nothing if not observant. Mary claims fatigue when she retires to bed before 10 pm rolls around, planting a soft kiss to Zelda’s cheek and throwing her an apologetic smile, but she tosses and turns through the night, only calming when the pull of exhaustion eventually sucks her under. She forgets lunch plans and seems to drift miles away when Zelda is speaking to her, a faraway look clouding bright eyes and the hint of teeth worrying with a bottom lip. On the nights Zelda does convince her to settle beside her on the couch, she starts off close enough, tucked into Zelda’s side while they watch an old movie (it was The Addams Family this past Wednesday, because while she’d never admit it, Zelda’s always harbored a bit of a crush on Anjelica Huston). But she always finds excuses to extract herself, and when she returns, she takes a seat on the opposite end of the couch. She burns the toast in the morning and spends nights more and more frequently at the cottage, declaring that she’s snowed in under mountains of schoolwork and desperately needs to catch up. And all of this paralyzes Zelda with fear, has her kissing her lover more soundly in the morning before she’s forced to leave for the Academy and holding her close in the night.

It’s a Friday when Zelda finally works up enough courage to confront her about it. Hilda, Sabrina and Ambrose had been over for dinner, as is common for a Friday evening, and Mary is at the sink washing plates and silverware, Zelda dutifully assuming the task of drying them when she’s finished. It’s quiet, the only sounds emanating from the running of the kitchen faucet and the occasional _clink_ of glass meeting glass, and it takes Zelda a solid bit of time before she’s able to coax the words from her throat.

“Darling,” she begins, taking a proffered steak knife and passing a towel over it.

“Hmm?”

“I can’t help but notice that… well, you’ve not been yourself, lately.”

“Really?” comes her short, disinterested response. She doesn’t break focus, scouring the dinnerplate with a cloth and refusing to meet Zelda’s eyes. The water must be scalding because her hands are turning pink and steam is rising from the sink, but the woman doesn’t comment on it.

“Yes,” she replies. And then, “Is something wrong, Mary?”

“What? No, everything’s fine.” It’s said quickly, _too_quickly for Zelda’s liking. “Pass me the soap.”

“Are you certain?” Zelda asks, retrieving the neon green liquid and placing it into an open hand. She watches as Mary squeezes, the soap falling onto the cloth before being pressed against a fork. She steels herself and tries again. “Is it…are you unhappy?”

“_What_?” And Mary’s eyes do meet hers then, a lock of stray hair quickly brushed to the side with the back of her hand. She appears to be sincere when she says, “Of course not, Zelda.”

“Well, it seems that way,” she counters, but Mary only huffs, passes the fork to Zelda. “Is it me? Or… or are you beginning to have regrets?” No further clarification is required for Mary to understand what Zelda is trying to ask her. The ordeal which nearly kept them apart permanently is never far from either of their minds, always seems to be looming just overhead.

“No, Zelda.”

“Then _what_? And don’t say that it’s nothing because I know you better than that.” Her voice has risen considerably, turned pitchy with her pleas, and it’s enough for Mary to realize that Zelda won’t back down from this easily. She sighs, draws her shoulders up and braces herself on the edge of the sink.

  
“Okay,” she says. “There’s _something_. But it isn’t what you’re thinking.” Her voice is low, tentative, and she chooses that moment to resume the washing, picks up another plate and scrubs at it fervidly. “It’s just…well, it’s just that I’ve never done this before.”

“Done what, Mary?”

A quick intake of breath, and then, “Asked someone to marry me.”

And Zelda thinks that, _surely,_ she must have misheard. The plate undergoing an extensively thorough washing is certainly clean at this point, but the woman’s assault upon it doesn’t falter, attention undivided as she rubs and scours.

“What did you say?”

“You heard me.” And then the plate is being placed not-so-gently back into the sink and the woman is turning toward her. There’s a wet splotch on her shirt from where the water’s splashed up against her, and Zelda sees the material clinging to her stomach before arms are being crossed to obscure her middle. _She’s __nervous_, Zelda understands, and acute relief engulfs her. She hadn’t been upset with the witch, hadn’t decided that she’d made a horrible decision in choosing to take Zelda as her lover, as her partner. She’d been nervous, and the knowledge as to why has Zelda knee-deep in heady anticipation.

“Yes,” she says easily. “But I’d like to hear it again.” The towel is snatched from her hand then, and Mary flings it at her carelessly, an embarrassed smile falling onto her features. She shuts the water off, runs wet hands over soft thighs, and the witch waits for her to speak.

“I understand if you don’t. I know that you haven’t had the best experience with marriage,” she says. “It’s just that, for a long time, my whole life, really, when I thought about what my future would look like, it was just me. But now, you’re there too. And I know we haven’t been together very long, not a suitably lengthy period of time for marriage to be on the table, even, but I can’t stop myself from thinking about how lovely it sounds, to be married to you, I mean. I never imagined I’d turn into one of those women who gets starry-eyed and distracted by frilly patterns and catering decisions and floral arrangements, I think lavender would be nice, by the way, but here I am, not able to focus on anything except how stunning I think you’d be in a wedding gown.” She sucks in a breath then, and Zelda must look utterly dumbfounded because she’s quick to continue. “But I _completely_ understand if you don’t want to, and if you don’t, just forget I said anything. Really, I mean, it’s probably for the best, anyway, and-”

“Mary.” The brunette’s frantic rambling dies on parted lips, and wild sea eyes flash open to connect with Zelda’s.

“What?”

“_Yes_.”

∆ ∆ ∆

_Present Day_

Zelda marries the woman she loves in the spring. She’s afraid; she would be lying if she said she weren’t. She’s familiar enough with the logistics of marriage: people gather round to celebrate, cake and alcohol are typically involved, and two individuals who’d previously belonged only to themselves become legally bound and leave together. In Zelda’s personal experience, the benefits of the ritual hadn’t managed to outweigh the drawbacks; being the wife of the High Priest isn’t nearly so fulfilling when one is turned prisoner in their own flesh and isn’t even able to enjoy the perks that come with the title. Given this, it’s understandable that the word “marriage” is enough for the back of Zelda’s neck to catch fire, for bile to rise up in her throat and her knees to weaken.

But the reality of wedding Mary Wardwell, she learns, is notably different. Unlike her previous encounter with marriage, there is no power to be gained from their joining. There are no underlying incentives spurring her toward signing on the dotted line, no deeply rooted, inane patriarchal traditions to be upheld. All that lies between them is love, and when it’s all said and done, she’ll leave not trailing behind her husband, but hand-in-hand with her wife.

They make use of the area behind the cottage, littering the space with lavender and blood-red roses, with miles and miles of garland draped over every smooth surface and pullout chairs courtesy of the Kinkle boy. It couldn’t be more different from the wedding she’d shared with Faustus, and for this she is immensely grateful. Only a select few are deemed important enough to garner an invitation: Sabrina and Hilda who go without saying, as do Ambrose, Prudence and her sisters, by extension; Sabrina’s friends who’ve more than proven themselves to be trusted allies and confidants of the Spellmans; a newly freed Nicholas, still recovering from being Lucifer’s personal detention center but smiling nonetheless by his girlfriend’s side; a few of their more tolerable colleagues from the Academy and Baxter High. Hilda bakes a cake that nearly surpasses her in height, but Zelda must admit that it is quite gorgeous with its piped-on patterns and masterfully sculpted fondant flowers.

Her dress paints a marvelous contrast against the ivory of her skin, silky ebony fabric fitting snugly to her frame before transitioning into an elegant train. Hilda really had outdone herself, and by the end of it, Zelda would have her not only to thank for her skills as a seamstress, but also for the officiating of the ceremony. Appointing Hilda with the authority to conduct marriage ceremonies within the Church was well within Zelda’s right as High Priestess, and her sister had been more than happy to accept the responsibility.

Before Zelda can fully wrap her mind around what’s happening, Ambrose is tugging at her arm and handing her a bouquet of white roses. Music begins wafting through the air, and then Zelda is being escorted down the runner by her nephew, looking forward to Hilda at the end whose smile is the most sickeningly sweet Zelda has ever seen. Finally, she reaches her sister’s side, and she’s taking a steadying breath when a flash of white draws her attention.

And then she sees Mary, and not dissimilar to the romance novels Hilda adores but Zelda always claims to loathe, everything else goes dark. She is a _vision_, long dark hair let out and tumbling over her shoulders, wrapped up in a stark white gown of lace and pearls. Even from a distance, Zelda sees that she’s glowing pink up to her ears, holding her own bouquet of inky black roses with flushed white knuckles. When the woman lifts her gaze and looks to her, Zelda’s heart swells with wonder, completely amazed that, in a matter of minutes, this woman will be her _wife_.

She’s beside her in an instant, and they each hand off their respective bouquets before joining hands. Mary smiles up at her then, all rosy cheeks and bright blue eyes, and the shade of Zelda’s lipstick and her misplaced hairs are the very last things on her mind. Hilda speaks, and try as she might, Zelda can’t seem to focus on the words, not when her bride is staring into her eyes and squeezing her hands in anticipation. She vaguely registers her sister signal the commencement of the vows, and her heart flutters in her chest. This has been the part she’d dreaded most, everything that she’d written on ill-fated paper burned to a crisp because nothing had seemed to be enough, to be able to capture the importance of this moment without coming off as cliché and horribly un-Zelda-like. Luckily, Mary takes the lead.

“Zelda,” she begins, drawing in a shaky breath. “I remember the first day I met you. You’d come to the school for Sabrina, and I’ll never forget that image of you storming through Baxter High’s halls, the students and faculty parting and making way for you. You seemed to tower over everything, commanded the attention of everyone within your radius, and I was absolutely terrified.” Zelda ducks her head at this, cheeks catching flame when she hears the resounding laughter from the crowd. Blushing and lips flirting with the inkling of a bashful grin, she knows that there is very little resemblance between her in this moment and the woman Mary describes. “You were positively ethereal, and that picture stayed with me for months. Even today, I catch myself struck with awe, with utter astonishment, but not because I’m afraid. It’s because, sometimes, it’s difficult to believe that you’re real, that it’s possible for someone like you to exist. And better still, for someone like you to want _me_.” Zelda’s mouth drops open, a swift rejoinder ready to fall from her tongue, to assure Mary that she’d never wanted anyone else quite so much as she wants this woman, not in all her years, and that she surely won’t in the years to come, but Mary continues,

“The road that brought us together was…less than ideal, and we very nearly didn’t make it here at all. But if I had to go back, to go through it all again…” She pauses here, gazes at the witch with a nearly unbearable tenderness. “I would, without question, if it meant me ending up right here, on this day, marrying you.” Zelda finds herself misty-eyed, then, and she’d _promised_ herself that she wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t be one of _those_ women who turn into blubbering heaps in the crucial moment, but she’s helpless against the emotions swirling in her chest, those tugging deep in her belly. “I love you, Zelda Spellman. I have for a long time, and I always will.”

Hot tears break free, _damn them_, and slide down Zelda’s cheeks, and a short laugh of incredulity escapes her throat. In the future, Zelda will look back on the day and realize that it’s in this exact moment when she’s finally able to accept it, that despite all of her flaws and baggage and involvement in less-than-seemly practices, _Mary loves her_. Mary loves her, and Zelda doesn’t need to continue waiting for the other shoe to drop because it doesn’t exist. Mary loves her, as wonderfully simple as that, and it’s so much more than she’d ever allowed herself to hope for.

It’s only when Hilda clears her throat awkwardly and she notes the lifted eyebrows and expectant expression of her bride does she realize that it’s her turn. But instead of nervous, of unsure and hesitant, all she feels is certainty, an unshakeable conviction. When she speaks, her voice is raw but the words are strong.

“Between Edward, Hilda and myself, our brother was always the one who had a way with words. I’m almost positive that he came into the world not screaming and wailing like other infants, but with the innate ability to craft impassioned speeches, with the knowledge of exactly what he should say in order to get people to listen. That’s where Sabrina gets it from, I’m certain.” A ripple of soft chuckles flows over the crowd, the young witch in question dropping her head and hiding a bashful smile behind the palm of her hand. “I have never possessed such a gift, never been able to master the art of turning words into poetry. I’ve agonized over this moment, and I know that if Edward were here, he’d know exactly which pretty words I should use to tell you just how much I adore you.” Mary blushes then, affectionately runs a thumb over the top of Zelda’s hand. “But I also know that when I think of the things I consider to be beautiful, loving you is at the very top, so this may be easier than I thought it would be.

“You once told me that when you were small, your mother called you ‘sun drop’ because you always seemed to be smiling, infected everyone around you with your warmth. Well, you’ve been through quite a bit since then, had more than your fair share of dark days, but I think your mother was right. When I think of you, I’m reminded of the sun. I haven’t been cold since the day you showed up on my doorstep, can’t even remember what it feels like to crave heat, anymore.”

Moisture is rapidly surfacing in the soft blue eyes of her bride, and Zelda disentangles one of her hands so she can brush away a stray tear rolling down Mary’s cheek. She takes a breath before continuing.

“You are the brightest thing in my life, Mary Wardwell, and before you, I didn’t know it was possible for someone to be so passionate yet so soft, extraordinarily kind but terribly fierce. And I don’t know if I’ll ever be fully convinced that I deserve your love, your devotion, but I promise to spend every day from now on trying to earn it.”

Mary is crying in earnest now, and Zelda looks on with undisguised adoration. Hilda says a few more words, pronounces them _wife and wife_(a glorious utterance), and then Zelda is placing the first of many kisses onto her wife’s lips. Mary smiles against her, warm and divine, pulls her closer with trembling fingers pressed to the small of Zelda’s back, and she knows that they must make for quite the sight, the contrasting shades of their gowns clashing but the fabrics sifting against one another when Mary buries her head into Zelda’s shoulder and breathes out a small laugh.

And so it is that Zelda Spellman becomes Zelda Spellman-Wardwell, the happiest, most pleased witch this side of the Atlantic, on the 13thday of May: a beautiful, dazzling day of blue skies and white puffy clouds, courtesy of her niece, and her wife by her side, cheeks dimpling with a radiant smile and their fingers intertwined, and Zelda knows that she’ll never, not for all the days to come, want for more than this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yanno I had to do it to 'em ;)
> 
> Drop a comment if you enjoyed & make my week?


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